LIP SERVICE

A crucial event is set to happen at the Batasang Pambansa, but its core transitioned—as history recorded—from informing the electorate to providing a platform for officials to march in lush dresses and fancy knicknacks, amid the dire straits of disadvantaged many. No wonder it’s dubbed by the late Miriam Defensor Santiago as sheer “thoughtless extravagance”—a description that is deemed fit to again name the event, more so with a 20 million peso fund earmarked just for the supposed state program-turned-pageantry.

On 22 July 2024, the Philippine president shall deliver his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, Quezon City. The speech shall be his vehicle to reprise his accomplishments and lay out plans for the prospective future left of his regime. However, despite being able to speak with the impression of a well-versed orator anchored on his “Bagong Pilipinas”  branding, the president is still yet to make concrete what the statement means  in terms of tangible outcomes catered to the Filipino people, especially the marginalized.

To cut the story to the chase; progress is just coasting along—primarily because the present regime is mostly to be contrasted only with the preceding administration, which may be the worst one by far in recent history. Hence, in general, the present regime is, by default, better. However, it isn’t hard to see where the administration fails miserably. 

For one, the country lags behind in education, with the learning poverty scarcely addressed in the office of now outgoing appointed education secretary-Vice President, Sara Duterte. Second, the runaway inflation, like rash vehicles, continues to hit ordinary Filipinos who only want to make ends meet with scant wages. In this regard, behind the grand scheme of food insecurity due to food inflation, in fact, is the failure to stabilize rice prices,  despite the ‘20-peso rice’ campaign promise. To boot this sectoral debacle, the 2023 SONA four agricultural pet aspirations mentioned are all underdeveloped—connoting drawbacks to attain improvement in the fisheries sector, prevention of anti-smuggling, cooperative boost, and expansion of Kadiwa stores that sell rice for P29 per kilo. This is amid the growing drift in the unemployment rate, which could’ve been appeased should the administration have eyes on local industrialization.

Politics-wise, we’re still yet to see reforms in the partylist system that reflect genuine representation of marginalized voices. Moreover, for a clear shift in our trajectory, another passage is enjoined: a zero-tolerance policy against corruption and unethical governance. Yet, from the looks of it, in light of the enactment of the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), with billions of pesos in its purse, the regime tends to commit the contrary—graft and corrupt practices.

In terms of on-the-ground change, meanwhile, the clarion calls are on the improvement of mass transit, before the twelve-digit Philippine peso funding for the president’s travel budget, and on environmental measures against climate change, mining, logging, and pollution, among others. The context of the former—the mass transit—inarguably tweaked drastically under the leadership of President Marcos in the last two years, decreasing the volume of culturally valuable public utility vehicles and skipping to account for the personal losses of the revamp process on the status of ordinary drivers, operators, and their families.

Also, the administration may as well insist on contending our tribunal victory over the contested West Philippine Sea further, while also asserting possession  of its domestic resources in order that exportation and foreign extraction of our resources be at least regulated, if not stopped—all to uphold our sovereign interest. Since winning the arbitrary rule in 2016, the fisheries sector can’t get a hand at roaming the territory without undue threats in like manner as our naval personnel face the risks of Chinese Coast Guard attacks in their legal resupply missions—swelling the pressure to roll out provisions lest the outright violations persist.

Of all, the President has yet to acknowledge, much less to apologize for, the atrocities related to their family under the autocratic rule of the late dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. Putting weight on human rights, the president clearly still has a large act to demonstrate to testify his humanitarian values—first by executing the latter, and second by openly supporting press and media freedom, which is plainly opposed by being an ‘inaccessible president’ who handpicks whom to respond to, and these exclude people who bid for transparency through investigative journalism.

Speaking of journalism, it is downright debunked that press freedom is ‘improving’ in the country. There is ‘no such thing’, as the College Editors Guild of the Philippines averred, stressing that the campus press freedom situation tallied one hundred cases of violations in 2022 to 2023 alone, including 17 state surveillances on student reporters and cases of repressions against 70 campus publications nationwide. These strings of criminal actions snowball the culture of impunity without having state forces held to account for the harassments they pose upon the student-victims and undermine the rights to transparency of the Filipino people, which shall only meet its end upon the abolition of the 2020 Anti-Terrorism Act, a clamor that’s kept boing for the president to heed.

Looking into the tracker readout of the SONA 2023 promises, 27 of the 40 flagship priorities are flashed with the status of ‘still in progress’, denoting a margin of unfulfilled bills that have yet to instigate crucial changes into the public spectrum in the face of demands for their expedited completion. 

Going back to the SONA 2024 program, House Secretary Reginald Velasco no less clarifies that the P20 million earmark is only to “ensure that the 2024 SONA is conducted with the highest standards” reflective of its “dedication to serving with integrity and accountability.” However, the actual state of the nation in no way perceptibly mirrors these prospects—more so in view of the fiasco from his political divorce with the Vice President, which disentangled their sole vague campaign platform of ‘unity’—with our status on global indexes and international assessments singularly standing as clear-cut testaments. Citing examples are: the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA), Global Impunity Index, World Press Freedom Index, Corruption Perception Index, and others—logging our records interchangeably between either extreme high or extreme low, depending on what placing indicates adverse conditions.

To borrow the line of economist Winnie Monsod, the country spots its name in ranks as “lowest when low is bad, and highest when high is bad.” This impression, needless to say, awaits a reversal by the president, and unless it’s materialized in reality and rankings, utterances made by the president are no more than added charm to his name and items on his long list of lip service.