I
haven’t monitored any single State of the Nation Address (Sona) in the
past decade. In fact, I didn’t even monitor any of such speeches during
FVR’s time. It’s useless to listen to politicians who do not mean what
they say and say what they do not mean. The only break I made in my Sona
boycott was during the attenuated term of President Estrada. From
Erap’s inaugural address down to his last in 2000, he always meant what
he said and said what he meant. His “Para sa Mahirap” policy, for one,
became the basis for his lowering MRT fares and his strident
stonewalling of any power and water rate increases.
Compare that with
the administrations of FVR down to Arroyo and today BS Aquino III, which
have all chanted the mantra of “economic growth” even as the
exploitation of the people continued to heighten unabated.
That
mantra was again uttered the other day. Instead of facing the issues
frontally, BS Aquino III lies — like in the case of his Energy Secretary
Rene Almendras, who, despite having caused the first quarter
P65-billion power debacle in Mindanao, got lavish praises from him. Of
course, not a single mention of this or the national power rate crisis
came out of PeNoy’s speech.
Reports on BS Aquino’s praises for Almendras came practically from
all sectors. However, the one from Iligan Light and Power Inc. (ILPI)
proprietor Jojo Borja particularly seethed with anger.
Imagine:
ILPI’s power rate is only P5.76 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) on a market base
of 60,000 customers whereas the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), which
has a far greater customer base, charges P13 per kWh.
I wonder what
other Mindanaoans think now of BS Aquino III after listening to his Sona
that was completely in denial of the critical issues of power cost and
policy. The same goes for the issue of water rates which are going to
hit the people right in their gut.
And so, all those praises for
Aquino’s Sona must only come from creatures of another planet or simply
from those benefiting from the exploitative system.
For the rest who weighed in on BS Aquino’s plaudits for his Cabinet, here are some reactions:
Armin
Luistro was praised for his job in the education sector while BS Aquino
III boasted of increasing the budget for education under his
administration. However, after what we saw in the chaotic implementation
of the harebrained K+12 program, how can anyone still praise them?
The
recruitment of 20,000 “volunteer” teachers to be paid P100 a day to
fill in the posts, as mandated by the K+12 program, shows the folly in
this administration’s planning as well as the condescending attitude of
the Education chief (which is not surprising, seeing that he came from
the elite La Salle milieu).
Worse, the lack of classrooms will be
aggravated by K+12 because the classroom construction program under the
public-private partnership (PPP) model will add a new layer of
profit-taking that will certainly shrink the effective budget toward
education.
Frankly, increases in the education budget are an annual
exercise of every administration, even Gloria’s. So BS Aquino III’s
boast is, in fact, a disingenuous half-truth that seeks to present a
distinctively progressive picture of oneself that is untrue.
Meanwhile,
praises for the Agriculture Department’s Proceso Alcala were critiqued
by members of the agricultural sector I had talked to, such as the head
of the million strong Kammpii farmers’ association that has been waiting
for government action on the ground to improve rice farmers’ production
and marketing while only seeing little progress over the past two
years.
The association leader added that the expansion of irrigation
systems being claimed by BS Aquino III for his administration is just
the regular increase that every administration has done the past
decades, alongside the flawed policies that have not encouraged the
increase of rice production.
With regard to the coconut sector, I
talked to members of the coconut processors groups and the most
significant report is that the Philippine Coconut Authority (the lead
agency of the state for this sector) is now going to be the Philippine
Coconut Lumber Authority (PCLA) as coconut cutting has now been
deregulated in several southern Tagalog provinces — to the detriment of
the coconut productivity campaign.
The flagship project of BS Aquino
III and his Cabinet, the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, was
given special mention in the recent Sona. But other than PeNoy’s
self-congratulatory remarks, nearly everyone I spoke with noted a
crucial presidential admission: That “there is no comprehensive
evaluation of the CCT yet.”
How can a P21-billion program not have
any comprehensive implementation evaluation one year after its start?
That, according to the “people’s jury” of media analysts I met, only
smacks of obfuscation to smokescreen untold anomalies.
But over and
above the criticisms I have heard, the one that has got to be the most
ominous comes from a Muslim ex-governor who showed me texts from many
senders who had expressed the same disgust at BS Aquino III’s Sona.
Such
text messages were peppered with “Busung” (which in Cebuano means
“cursed”) in reference to BS Aquino III. The reason for the Muslim
rancor? BS Aquino III failed to greet the Muslims on the start of the
Ramadan that coincided with his speech. How could BSA III’s speech
writers have missed that?
But aside from this, the panel of analysts
also noted statistical fumbles, like the rosy crime statistics that
contradicted police chief Nic Bartolome’s TV and radio admission that
crime in the Metro increased 68 percent year-on-year from 18,400 to
28,700 cases; or the dengue statistics based on 2011 instead of 2012
data.
Who’s to blame? Look no further than the Presidential
Management Staff — which goes to show that an Ateneo and Kennedy School
of Government degree cannot guarantee competence in such vital tasks,
which also sadly applies to the appointing power.
(Watch Destiny
Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with
replay at 11:15 p.m. and on Sunday, this week on “Sin Tax Sins;” visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com).
(May pahintulot ng muling paglilimbag mula kay Ka Mentong)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/index.php/commentary/item/2068-%E2%80%98busung%E2%80%99-cursed
I
H
T
Less
than 24 hours after former President now Pampanga Rep. Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo had been granted temporary liberty after posting a P1
million bail bond for her electoral sabotage case, the Office of the
Ombudsman tried to get her detained again through an arrest warrant for
plunder charges, but failed to secure it from the Sandiganbayan.
C
