ASSESSMENT OF P-NOY'S SECOND SONA

                  According to www.wikipedia.com a SONA is an annual event in the Republic of the Philippines, in which the President of the Philippines reports on the status of the nation, normally to the resumption of a joint session of the Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate). This is a duty of the President as stated in Article VII, Section 23 of the 1987 Constitution:

“The President shall address the Congress at the opening of its regular session. He may also appear before it at any other time. ” 

             

                   The State of the Nation Address 2011 was delivered by President Benigno Aquino Jr. last July 25, 2011, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, Quezon City, with thousands of spectators and Filipino people watching inside their homes. A lot of points could be cited in the SONA of PNOY, first thing is that it was delivered in Filipino, which we think is just the right thing to do because not all Filipinos understand the universal language and after all the SONA reflects the status of the country so it should be understood by its countrymen. It centered on the so called “wang -wang”, which is an implication of the corruption in the Philippines. It is not just about the usage of the siren but also the culture that has been a trend for us Filipinos, wherein a lot of officials commit graft and corruption. For the first SONA, he mentioned about the removal of “wang-wang” in his administration, it does not only pertain to the signaling in streets, or roads, but it is all about the changes that would lead to a better image of the government to the society, which is a step to minimize or better remove the corruption circulating in all departments of the government. There are also things that he mentioned about the achievements of his administration. But one thing that we don’t want to hear is the controversies of the previous government. Yes, it is just right to show off to the Filipino people about the anomalies of the latter, but to repeat it over and over is just a waste of time. Why not focus on program that would address the needs of the poor and the needy, instead of bothering to solve cases about the missing funds and the corruption of previous administration, well in fact a lot of issues are coming out but none of them was solved. PNOY should be hands- on in improving the country because its is his main role as a president, we are not saying that he should forget about the glitch of the past administrations, what we are trying to point out is that, he should focus on improving the current situations of the Filipinos. He should also be dedicating his time to develop ways on how to answer the questions of poverty

               It has already been a year for President Benigno Aquino Jr., but as far as the state of the country is concerned, we don’t really think that he has done enough to improve the lives of the Filipinos. During his SONA, he mentioned that the number of Filipinos that are hungry has come down, from 20.5% in March to 15.1% in June, through government's P21 billion cash transfer fund, which is a cornerstone for PNOY’s poverty alleviation program. It is a step for PNOY’s administration to address the problems of the country when it comes to poverty, but come to think of it, a certain percentage of decrease is not sufficient to say that fewer Filipinos are hungry, what we need to hear is that, every Filipino regardless of status is having a complete meal everyday. The president trumpeted about his accomplishments in the country's economy, including upgrades in credit ratings that reduced the country's interest payment by P23 billion since the start of his term. This is one thing that we should not be grateful of. A high or favorable credit rating indicates that there is less or no risk of defaulting on our loans. Thus, creditors are more willing to lend with lower interest rates and therefore “less” debt burden for the borrower, but the impact was passed to the people. To get hold of the upgrade, the administration made sure of paying our debts dutifully, but at the same time resorted to an enormous under-spending, which means increasing the allotment for debt servicing instead of spending it to the needs of the Filipinos. Despite the bigger debt servicing, total outstanding debt of the government still rose to 5.23 trillion as of April 2011 that includes the loan of the government from Asian Development Bank to fund the CCT program. This means that the P23 billion mentioned by Aquino as savings from lower interest payments will just be used to pay for the rising debt obligations of government, including those acquired for the Cash transfer program. Another alleged achievement for PNOY’s administration is the zero based budgeting. He quoted that to end the wang- wang culture, a zero based budgeting is implemented to end many wasteful programs. Zero based budgeting in its simplest terms, a budget where income minus the expenses equals zero. This signifies that every peso of the government’s income is properly accounted for. It might not be that accurate to plan for the budget in advance but this is a step closer to lessen the other projects of the government, and it is one way of leading to the right path as PNOY pointed out during his campaign. This is something that could be realistically accomplished within the term of office for President Aquino. With the use of zero based budgeting the government was able to cut or hold the fund for some pending with programs that are inefficient in delivering superior outcomes and at the same time expand the well performing programs that are addressing the needs of the people. It also pursued the difficult Government Controlled Corporation and to further considers the deactivation of other agencies and GOCCs.

                Definitely, the second SONA would not be the end for our president; he still has five more years to improve our country and the lives of the Filipino people. He also has a year to prove to us that he is really worthy of his position, and hopefully for the third SONA, changes for betterment would be implemented and promises would be eradicated.