SONA director hopeful 2018 chaos won’t be repeated

MANILA, Philippines — The film director tasked to take charge of President Duterte’s fourth State of the Nation Address is hoping the July 22 event will not be as tumultuous as last year, when lawmakers ousted former speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. 

“I want it to be hopeful and good. I want the mood to be celebratory, to send the message: don’t fight with one another!” Joyce Bernal, speaking in English and Filipino, told House reporters in a chance interview.

The award-winning director may be expressing her fears following sketchy reports about the successor of speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was installed last year by more than 200 House members in a pre-SONA event that turned out to be disorderly and unruly. 

Bernal admitted that she was shocked by the House coup, which delayed Duterte’s speech by nearly two hours, owing to the turmoil that marked Alvarez’s ouster and Arroyo’s installation as leader of the now 306-member House of Representatives. 

“Now, we want it grand. Hopefully, we will have beautiful live music,” she said, adding that the annual event may be better this time around, where local pieces or decorations could be displayed to highlight the indigenous peoples’ talents. 

“We want something that has been weaved by our indigenous people from Mindanao, or from Mountain Province. Anything that is Filipino weaved, whatever is crafted by us originally,” Bernal said. 

There will also be more cameras installed at the Batasan Pambansa, particularly inside the Plenary Hall where Duterte will deliver his speech and where senators, Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, former presidents and members of the diplomatic corps will be seated. 

About 20 cameras will be installed at the Plenary Hall and Bernal is coordinating with House secretary-general Roberto Maling and officials of Radio Television Malacañang, who are Duterte’s close-in crew. 

This will be Bernal’s second time to direct Duterte’s SONA.

‘Unprecedented gains’

Duterte is expected to report “unprecedented gains” in the labor sector in his SONA. 

“Hopefully, the President will announce during the SONA the regularization of almost 500,000 contractual workers,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in an interview.

“That’s unprecedented. No president was able to do that,” Bello added.

Since Duterte assumed the presidency in 2016, Bello said, the Department of Labor and Employment has launched an intensified campaign against illegal contractualization.

Bello added that with the campaign, almost half a million workers were regularized by their employers voluntarily, although some questioned the DOLE’s compliance order.

He said more contractual workers could have been regularized if not for the cases filed before the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

“We hope our legislators will give us more teeth like ordering suspension that may graduate to cancellation of license to operate. Right now, DOLE can only impose administrative penalties,” Bello pointed out.

During the SONA, Bello said the President may also announce the construction of the first hospital for overseas Filipino workers (OFW).

He said the groundbreaking of the OFW hospital in Pampanga is on July 15.

Duterte may also sign the Security of Tenure bill during the SONA later this month, Bello added.

“We have already submitted our position to the President and our position is in support of the SOT,” Bello said.

The Department of Trade and Industry, he said, also gave its support for the bill.

Although the signing was delayed, Bello said, the proposed bill is likely to get positive reaction from Malacañang considering that it is a certified administration bill.

Protest

Duterte’s being a puppet to China and human rights violations will highlight the protest action to be mounted by militant labor in the coming SONA.

Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) chairman Elmer Labog said militant workers will demand an independent probe on the Recto Bank incident and express their displeasure over China’s increasing intrusion in Philippine territory. 

“With China claiming innocence and the Duterte government lawyering for its Chinese masters, Filipino workers demand an independent third party probe on the Recto Bank incident,” Labog said in a statement.

He said China should be held accountable for their intrusion in Philippine seas, destruction of natural resources and direct attacks against Filipino fishermen. – With Mayen Jaymalin