Now that Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III is officially a lame duck president in the aftermath of a devastating Supreme Court ruling that rendered his financial brainchild, the notorious Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) unconstitutional, what can we expect him to “report” to Congress on his State of the Nation Address (SONA) this month?
Well, we know one thing President BS Aquino will not do. He had promised not to humiliate Senator Ramon ‘Bong’ Revilla Jr during his speech. This was after Revilla’s wife, former starlet Lani Mercado threatened to boycott the affair which is scheduled on the 28th July. On that, Revilla can rest easy in his prison cell.
Aside from that, the no-brainer items to “report” this year are:
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(1) His dubious achievements in that usual way that he traditionally reports them in the SONA
There is a long enough list of “economic gains” BS Aquino can mouth off. But reciting lists is easy. The hard part is establishing convincing causal links between BS Aquino’s governance and movements in those economic indicators. After all, it remains hopelessly debatable as to whether those movements resulted from initiatives mounted during Aquino’s watch or from groundwork laid during his predecessor former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration.
Nonetheless, the economy has been chugging along fine and the Philippines, based on crunched numbers alone, is said to be the regional legend at the moment. But much of these gains continue to be stimulated by government spending (thanks to the now-defunct DAP), remittances from the country’s army of overseas foreign workers (OFWs), cash dole-outs to the poor, and investments in casinos and malls.
But expansion or increases in productivity and production capacity, the industrial capital base, and public infrastructure have contributed very little to the value of the nation’s economy. These would have otherwise spurred growth in the economy of the sort that creates employment in a manner that can likely be sustained beyond President BS Aquino’s term which ends in 2016. Unfortunately, President BS Aquino had focused on the easy economic stimuli rather than the more visionary groundwork.
(2) The ‘framework agreement’ he brokered with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) granting the Bangsamoro people ‘autonomy’
This was the initiative that, if things had gone according to plan, will have won President BS Aquino a Nobel Peace Prize — or so the President and all his men hoped. Unfortunately negotiating with terrorists and keeping out of the loop a key Mindanao Muslim faction, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) may render this “achievement” null and void. The MNLF happens to be the only Islamic group in the Philippines officially recognised by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). MNLF leader Nur Misuari, has been sitting in the OIC under an “observer status” since 1977 and is, in principle, the acknowledged representative of Filipino Muslims and, by transitivity, the Bangsamoro people.
(3) Noynoy’s War on Corruption
The centrepiece of President BS Aquino’s pitch to his ‘Boss’ (the Filipino people, he claims) is his zero-tolerance regard for corruption; the Daang Matuwid (“straight-and-narrow”) and Kung Walang Kurap Walang Mahirap (“where there is no corruption, there is no poverty”) doctrines which he bannered during his campaign. This year’s posterboys of this campaign to eradicate corruption so that, as the logic goes, poverty may be fully eliminated in the Philippines, Senators Bong Revilla, Jinggoy Estrada, and Juan Ponce Enrile are now in jail on unbailable charges. Unfortunately, the scorched-earth approach the President and his henchmen used to achieve this had backfired, turning the the gun on their precious DAP slush fund.
Now, in all ironies, President BS Aquino stands — accused not just of pork barrel thievery but using it to bribe ‘senator-judges’ during the 2012 impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.
* * *
It is hard enough stammering through a SONA armed only with a list of dubious achievements. But what is really hard is having to face fellow (alleged) crooks, look them in the eye, and explain that your “anti-corruption” initiatives have cost them the whole point of being a member of Congress.
Awkward…
Indeed, sentiments of the broader public can easily be ignored. After all, that’s politicians’ Ethics 101. Make like you are the voters’ best friend during elections then largely ignore them after you win. But Senators and House Representatives that you need to face and schmooze with at every turn in your efforts to govern the land, are another. That’s the Philippine President’s SONA this year — a literal meeting of criminal minds. Allegedly, of course.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
nothing but to step down for DELIKADEZA….in good faith
nothing left but to resign out of DELICADEZA….that is good faith accepting his mistake or just a plain I’M SORRY!!!
Power crisis in Mindano!!!
big deal, there are power crisis everywhere in the philippines
What can the guy possibly say? The country is still ,if not more,FUCKED as the day he took office. He has deliberately accomplished nothing to help the people.Protecting Hacienda Luisita and scamming $$$$$ from the state coffers is par for the Presidential course and nothing to be proud of or make a speech about.
What can the guy possible say?
We are all rich
You are all poor
Deal with it.
On with the show.
More fun in the Republic of Bernard Madoff.
that is not true
^ [citation needed]
MH , I doubt Dimaunahan is the sharpest knife in the drawer.
It seems that stupidity is a common factor in selecting persons to be malacañang trolls
-_-
4 years and they still can’t come up with anything new to the table.
Wish there would be someone brave enough who will heckle him again on his speech. And we’ll all watch him melt on that podium. That’ll be priceless. -_-
you are not very nice . you are a stupid spoils brat.
He might be a “spoils brat”
(by the way, nice use of broken grammar, idiot) as you claim but
He’s definitely smarter than you, little malacañang troll
Besides, you malacañang trolls are all acting butthurt just because GRP is obliterating your yellow propaganda.
Your tears are delicious
Troll Harder
Aquino and his Speechwriters can snort a few “Shabu”. Then, paint an “Illusion of Prosperity”, on the country.
Maybe he will talk about his connivance with Napoles and the list of Senators. Perhaps, on how he bribed Senators , to impeach Former Chief Justice Corona…. Maybe about the DAP Funds. Where he had hidden them…
Binay anyone? he’s next LMAO.
Binay has DAP Funds also…he is silent on where he hid them…”lahat na sila magnanakaw”…
For me Pnoy just used the PDAF and DAP as a bait to catch the oppositions hoping that his number 1 target(Bongbong Marcos)would also fall on his trap, but it didn’t, instead it came back to him.
I think all politicians, pro or opposition should be put under heavy watch list by the black ops. Duterte has been very successful in removing drug pushers in Davao by deploying stealth police forces. If the government can hide billions of pesos under their blankets, then I guess it wouldn’t be expensive for the military to have a special section to decapitate these bad tomatoes. But of course, they should start the job by castrating their corrupt generals.
Penoy’s speech writer isn’t the best.
Here’s an article about who writes for his speeches.
http://manilastandardtoday.com/2014/07/11/the-kid-s-speeches/
An able leader does not need speechwriters. You only need those if you are more concerned with looking good rather than the real aim of the speech. Which also only shows that we have the wrong guy leading this country. I believe that if he means what he wants to say then he should be able to express himself without any hitches, but the problem is he is lying, thus he needs to choose carefully what he will be saying.
Furthermore, the SONA is basically an accomplishment report, and he dare say it in plain tagalog with lots of “po”, which to me loses it’s essence being a formal report to the people. If one of my guys submitted a report which not done professionally then he doesn’t deserve to work with me. The same should also work for public office. He should be sacked from his job, for his incompetence and unprofessionalism.
Publicist Yolly Ong given air time by Rappler to defend the DAP. She liberally quotes Raissa Robles…
…then proceeds to outline a profile of administration detractors.
Maybe she transition from snorting shabu to injecting liquid cocaine directly into her bloodstream? 😛
The DAP, whether constitutional or not is use for the betterment of the country. No President had ever the guts to rule out funds and reconstruct the nation’s infrastructure project. What former presidents did was to corrupt money from the treasury of the country. Look at them now. They are very wealthy. Hope that when they pass away their souls be in purgatory, not hell.
You are correct.. Just clarify where the 140+ b went so the people will be informed. Be a good Role model and follow the rule of law of there will ne new chaos..if we did what pnoy did swipe at the SC even when the motion is under reconsideration we will land in jail. But here in the philippines i guess that’s how politics are. He has 2 years left what’s, other sectors calling for his puster is idiotic (my personal opinion)