Pres. Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s fifth State of the Nation Address\n(SONA) was actually honest and explained a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president is at the commanding heights of policymaking\nin the country. If this last SONA showed anything, it\u2019s the lack of leadership\nover pandemic response at the very top \u2014 Pres. Duterte doesn\u2019t seem to\nappreciate the worst public health crisis and economic decline in the country\u2019s\nhistory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which is why the president’s SONA was, despite the relative\nlack of profanity and misogynistic ad libs, still deeply offensive. The country\nand millions of people are suffering from the pandemic. Yet, in the most\nimportant policy speech of the year and maybe of this administration, the\npresident even joked about not understanding what his speechwriters had written.\nThis was in incredibly poor taste. People are suffering and deserve better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pres. Duterte didn’t really talk about where we are in the\ncrisis and what the government’s plans are to get us out of this. With all the\npower in the country to do good, it turns out he’s just going to use this to\npursue his same old stale, narrow-minded and personal agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Illegal drugs and oligarchs are still at the top of his mind\nas if the world hasn\u2019t become radically different and challenging in the last\nsix months. No wonder COVID-19 is still spreading after four months of\nlockdowns. Tens of millions of poor Filipinos aren\u2019t getting the aid they need,\nand there\u2019s still no economic recovery plan six months into the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president is candid about deferring to his economic\nmanagers on economic issues. This isn\u2019t necessarily a good thing because\nfinance folks are among those deeply unsuited to be at the helm of development\npolicymaking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Economic development, especially during crises, is most of\nall about the people. Finance folk, even during crises, will cling to a \u2018strong\nfiscal position\u2019 and \u2018prudent fiscal management\u2019 as if these are the ends of\ndevelopment. \u2018Creditworthiness\u2019 for whom? That\u2019s always for the creditors who\nonly care about being paid back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Versions of the Bayanihan<\/em> 2 bill he mentioned have\nbeen in Congress since May. But his government has been sitting on them because\nthe economic managers are more concerned about \u2018creditworthiness\u2019 than the\nhealth and economic response the people need. What they propose is too little\nand certainly too late. Taking so long is just making things worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original stimulus bill proposed by Congress was worth Php1.3\ntrillion and would have been more effective. More so if bigger funds were\nallotted for household cash transfers to improve poor families’ welfare and\nboost aggregate demand especially for goods and services of local medium, small\nand micro enterprises (MSMEs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deferring to the finance department, the Bayanihan 2 bill in\nthe Senate is worth just Php140 billion and the House version just Php162\nbillion. These are far too small for the magnitude of the crisis at hand. They\nwill also have even less effect the longer they take to get passed and as the\neconomic damage mounts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other countries in the region have had stimulus measures\nsince as early as February or March. The Philippines is the only country in Southeast\nAsia still without a stimulus program, and probably among the world\u2019s laggards\nas well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The rant against so-called oligarchs is particularly empty.\nHis administration controversially fosters its own oligarchs. The Villar family\nare close political and business allies and they\u2019re riding the wave of water\nprivatization to join the ranks of the country\u2019s water barons. Dennis Uy is a\nfriend from Davao who became the sole bidder to become the country\u2019s third\ntelco, and not coincidentally joined the ranks of the country\u2019s super-rich only\nin 2019 under Pres. Duterte\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Profit-seeking monopolies and oligarch rule in the country\nof course need to be dismantled. For the Duterte administration though, its\ntough talk is just a facade for using the vast powers of government to favor\nits allies and against perceived unfriendly competition in business and in\npolitics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this rate and especially if the global recession drags\non, recovery even to just pre-COVID levels may take years. The economy is\nsinking and the people will suffer even more \u2013 but we\u2019ll be creditworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBoracay is doing well because of its scenery,\u201d the president happily declared while droning on about various pending bills in Congress so tangential to the urgent crises the country is facing today. It was the only hint of sunshine in a speech that bared just why things are going to get even worse in the period to come.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BIRD FEED<\/p>\n The president is at the commanding heights of policymaking in the country. If this last SONA showed anything, it\u2019s the lack of leadership over pandemic response at the very top \u2014 Pres. Duterte doesn\u2019t seem to appreciate the worst public health crisis and economic decline in the country\u2019s history. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":10039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048,2049],"tags":[2331,2199,2218,347,2322,2265,116,2330,1050],"class_list":["post-10035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-bird-feed","tag-bayanihan-2-bill","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-response","tag-duterte-administration","tag-economic-recovery","tag-economic-stimulus","tag-philippine-economy","tag-sona-2020","tag-state-of-the-nation-address","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 18:30:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10041,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10035\/revisions\/10041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}