The 2017 State of the Nation Address was dismissive of the Philippines\u2019 serious socioeconomic problems especially joblessness, poverty and inequities, research group IBON said. The President even tended to oversimplify the economic situation to justify authoritarianism, said the group.<\/p>\n
President Duterte delivered Monday his second State of the Nation Address to the country\u2019s senators and congressmen. According to IBON\u2019s executive director Sonny Africa, \u201cThere was no acknowledgement that the economy actually shed almost 400,000 jobs since last year and that poverty remains deep and widespread among tens of millions of Filipinos.\u201d Africa added that there was no sign that the current administration grasped how neoliberal policies implemented by its predecessors have resulted in rapid growth, profits and wealth for a few amid poverty and joblessness for the many.<\/p>\n
According to Africa, the President\u2019s speech ignores the long-standing deep structural inequities that keep the economy underdeveloped. \u201cLandlords and rural elites take the most of landless peasants and farm workers\u2019 produce; capitalists exploit workers through low wages and scant benefits, and charge consumers monopolistic prices; and domestic agriculture and industry are stifled to preserve foreign big business\u2019 markets and sources of raw materials,\u201d explained Africa. He also said that the President\u2019s discussion of investor confidence and protecting local and foreign investors even defends these inequities.<\/p>\n
Africa said that the President\u2019s statement that the economy surges when there is peace and order is an oversimplification to bolster the drive to dictatorial rule. \u201cA declaration to uphold the bias for the marginalized and poor in the economic sphere would have been much welcome,\u201d Africa said, \u201cbut instead the impression is of growing authoritarianism as the political framework to push the neoliberal economic agenda against growing protest and opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are alarming developments in the state of the nation,\u201d said Africa. \u201cThe administration would do well to heed the grievances and demands of the people who are constantly asserting their social and economic rights\u201d, Africa concluded.<\/p>\n
\u200b<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2017 State of the Nation Address was dismissive of the Philippines\u2019 serious socioeconomic problems especially joblessness, poverty and inequities, research group IBON said. The President even tended to oversimplify the economic situation to justify authoritarianism, said the group. President Duterte delivered Monday his second State of the Nation Address to the country\u2019s senators and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[1036,1052,347,302,116],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6359"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6361,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6359\/revisions\/6361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}