As promised, President Marcos provided the details of his governance agenda, not only for his first year in office but also some of his targets for his entire term, in his first State of the Nation Address or SONA.
There was no memorable soundbite like “Kayo ang boss ko” or “Walang kaibigan, walang kumpare, walang kamag-anak” (OK, these were from inaugural addresses, not SONAs). But Bongbong Marcos can be credited for writing (according to Malacañang) his own 95-minute-long speech.
BBM’s long-term goal: upper middle income country status for the Philippines and single-digit poverty rate by the end of his term. In a post-SONA briefing yesterday, his economic team laid out an eight-point agenda for making this possible.
The economic targets he enumerated at the start of the SONA were punctuated with so many numbers that it looked like most of those in the audience were fighting off sleep, with only members of the economic team managing to stay awake.
Still, the details should satisfy many of those who said BBM’s inaugural address lacked specifics. The first part of the SONA, dealing with the economy and spoken wholly in English, was also clearly geared at a particular audience that wants such details.
More specifics are needed on where he intends to source all the funds needed for his priority projects, with the pandemic still ongoing and external shocks keeping consumer prices elevated and the peso weak.
The only new revenue measure mentioned was the value-added tax on digital transactions. Government rightsizing is meant to promote efficiency and cut costs. But Marcos is also creating new agencies including a Department of Water Management.
BBM also promised to build specialty hospitals in key areas outside Metro Manila – to the lusty applause of the politicians who were silent (unresponsive is an apt description) throughout much of the economic portion of the SONA.
For the sake of better public health care, let’s truly hope Marcos gets not only the enormous funding and specialized equipment for these planned hospitals, but also the required professional medical staff that even such hospitals in Metro Manila are short of.
The economic and poverty alleviation targets he mentioned are more optimistic than those set by top investment consultancies, multilateral lenders and other economic analysts. But I guess a president has to set the bar higher, for his team to exert greater effort.
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Several of the measures BBM announced, such as those for overseas Filipino workers and beneficiaries of the conditional cash transfer, had already been discussed by his Cabinet members in the past weeks.
But his call to his congressional allies makes the return of mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps certain, plus the more extensive use of English as a medium of instruction. (Militant teachers, however, were unhappy with the emphasis on English, and the silence on their demand for better pay.)
Farmers seemed happy with his pronouncements on farm assistance, making agrarian reform work and boosting agricultural production. Players in the creative industries must have been heartened by his appreciation of the sector’s potentials for boosting the economy.
His comments on the West Philippine Sea were also appreciated, although the sincerity of his fighting words will still have to be tested.
After six years, it’s refreshing to have a president who does not denigrate English proficiency, and has a deep appreciation for the crucial role played by quality education in national competitiveness, particularly in STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It’s challenging to teach youths the value of education when the country is led by an academic underachiever who constantly gloats that the class valedictorian ended up being his “trabahante.”
What could face spirited opposition: it looks like certain communities will soon have mini nuclear power plants in their neighborhoods, perhaps alongside modern windmills and solar power generators.
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As noteworthy as what was said in BBM’s first SONA was what was left unsaid.
There was no mention of Charter change or federalism, the advocacy of the party under which Marcos ran. Sen. Robinhood Padilla, eager to show that there is more to him as lawmaker than a minor name change, must be disappointed.
Consistent with his campaign messaging, Marcos steered clear of corruption and transparency issues, human rights and the justice system. Perhaps he wanted to avoid accusations of hypocrisy. The inaugural call for national unity was also omitted.
But human rights advocates might be encouraged by the lack of endorsement for the restoration of capital punishment, and the silence on the pursuit of the war on drugs – the one specific and repeated request of Rodrigo Duterte to his successor.
Marcos praised and vowed continuity of the infrastructure program of Duterte, who skipped the SONA as he did the presidential inaugural.
Peace and order, however, is clearly not high on the agenda of Marcos Junior. There was no mention either of the communist insurgency and the peace process, Islamic separatism and extremist violence.
Judging from BBM’s Cabinet picks, the six-year reign of military and police retirees in the national government is over.
Duterte often explained that he picked ex-soldiers and cops because they got things done and, in so many words, they jumped when he told them to jump. Marcos Junior apparently wants more than yes-men in his official family.
This could indicate greater openness to divergent opinion, which is not the characteristic of a budding despot. Or is this reading too much into Junior’s early statements?
Bongbong Marcos is still in his honeymoon period with the nation, so most people are perceiving the glass to be half-full. And wishing that, for everyone’s sake, the nation will indeed endure.