PGMA’s SONA 2008

In my own opinion, the recent State-of-the-Nation Address of Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was not quite different from her previous SONA’s.  The contents and emphasis of her address was purely on regaining the trust and approval of the Filipino people. We can’t hide the fact that even before she became our president the economy of the Philippines had never been good.  We were tailing behind the economies of Asia, like Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Japan. But as a President it is her duty to uplift the life of Filipinos.

She might have significant reasons of saying that the postponement of weekly oil price hikes is due to her appeal to oil companies. Few people acclaimed she deserves credit for this but many also are skeptical and are thinking that this is just but a deceptive maneuver.  We will take into account the result of the SWS survey on June 2008. President Gloria has recorded a sudden drop of her rating to -33% from the -16% she got last year.  This result is the reflection of the peoples’ restiveness in the issue of uncontrolled increases of oil prices and food prices which leads to 11.4% inflation rate that has been considered the highest in past 14 years. We can say that one of every two Filipino thinks that PGMA’s performance and trust ratings are poor but the analysis as would be given by the president’s advisers are not that poor – it is not that bad, in the end. Even if the statistical data already tells us that 48% disapproves of PGMA and that 53% distrusts her – this disapproval and distrust ratings – can still be misinterpreted. The deterioration of the people’s standard of living triggered the people to bring her rating down and to discredit her accomplishments of pulling in international credit agencies and paying for our country’s foreign debt. The issue of our foreign debt will not die and will forever be a burden to the government. But good job for Her Excellency she had not stopped finding ways to allocate budget for it.

The President is firm and intact to her decision not to take away VAT on oil and power because according to her tax is the lifeblood of the nation. For me, I will only affirm this statement if collections are kept in the proper safe box and not in somewhere else’s pocket. I am not accusing the President. I am just implying that most of her appointed tax collectors are corrupt and disobedient. The government is collecting too much on the people’s pocket. Anything is being taxed, from salaries to businesses, anything that can be monetized, but still our economy is suffering. If it’s true that the country relies only in the tax collection, how will we explain the economy of the United Arab Emirates? The United Arab Emirates is one of the richest countries in the world and is not taxing salaried individuals whether they are locals (UAE citizens) or foreigners. They don’t even collect value added tax. But then the government has more than enough capacity to serve the people at its best. No local is unemployed.  It is just a small country but the influx of foreign investors in its shore is amazingly increasing every year.

President Arroyo and her allies of have explained that the economic crisis is a global phenomenon but do you believe them? What if they are just washing their hands off so that the vast number of people organized in rallies because of this mal-developed and economic retrogression will not blame them? Yes it is true that the Philippines economic crisis is part of the current crisis in the World capitalists system, in particular, the depression of the US economy, is false and misleading that the government can’t do anything about it.  In the first place the problem with our economy is the result of our previous economic policies that had no strong fundamentals combined with this world crisis. President Gloria may have studied every angle of this scenario but have not pointed out the best possible solution. Something has to be done to alleviate our economic situation.

The President is certain that we are heading forward and our economic crisis would soon meet its end.  She is proud that we are now earning precious foreign exchange as evidenced by the increasing value of Peso to a dollar.  To earn higher precious exchange, the Philippines must export brawn and brain power.  But how will we export agricultural products that we can’t even produce enough rice to feed our own hungry people? The only noticeable tools in earning foreign exchange are the Overseas Filipino Workers who are working hard, shading tears and blood only to earn a living for their family back home. But on the other side of the story (if the value of peso becomes stronger) the lives of million of Filipinos abroad would be in misery.

Indeed, the President had established pro-poor programs that are visible at ground level. Who will forget the food for children program, the one-time P500 refund on electric bill, the cheap NFA rice in designated outlets, the land titles to identified beneficiaries rationalized by presidential proclamations, those checks to families of the victims of the shipwreck, typhoon frank and others? And who can forget the promise of the President about the P.50 per text?

In general, the State-of-the-Nation Address of the President was wonderfully delivered.  In particular, the President is vigorously in high spirit that the crisis of our country can be solved if we, the people, do our share. Let’s us not blame the President, after-all, she is also a person and she has the limitations.