THE ANNUAL State of the Nation Address (SONA) aims to inform the general public of the Philippines’ present circumstances and to showcase the steps being taken by the government to improve them. In effect, while the SONA provides a platform for the president to make their promises to the country known, it also serves as an opportunity for Filipinos to evaluate the administration’s performance.
While President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s second SONA is optimistic about the country’s condition, protests over various issues still arise from different sectors. Lawmakers and activists alike worry that many of the country’s unhealed wounds are still being ignored.
Claims to success
In his speech, Marcos painted the Philippines as a country whose condition was slowly improving. He boasted of several successes within the country’s economy despite several setbacks. Declaring the country’s financial system to be “strong and stable,” he touted the country’s 7.6 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2022, and 6.4 percent GDP growth for the first quarter of 2023 as evidence that the Philippines is “among the fastest-growing economies in the Asian region.”
However, it was not mentioned that this is the lowest that GDP growth has been in the last two years since the Philippines began to recover from lengthy and restrictive pandemic lockdowns. Marcos also seemed to brush over the soaring prices of goods and commodities, which peaked at an 8.7 percent inflation rate in January of this year—the country’s highest since November 2008.
Hand in hand with boosting economic growth, strengthening the agricultural sector has been one of Marcos’ primary focuses as the self-appointed Agriculture Secretary. In his speech, he claimed that the country was able to enjoy lower prices of basic goods in the past few months thanks to Kadiwa stores, an initiative project enacted under his department. The project features strategically placed stores that would sell agricultural products that were produced by Farmers and Fisherfolk Cooperatives and Associations. Alongside providing consumers with cheaper goods, the program also gives farmers and fisherfolk, who have trouble selling their produce, a platform to do so.
Contrary to Marcos’ claims about the Kadiwa program’s effectiveness, netizens have pointed out that it heavily lacks in certain aspects. For one, Kadiwa stores have been criticized for potentially lacking in sustainability, as some worry that the program can only last for as long as government subsidies for it are available. Local vendors are also concerned that the Kadiwa stores’ lowered prices might hamper their own direct sales. Nevertheless, Marcos looks to make the program permanent despite being originally proposed as a band-aid initiative.
Glossed over realities
While Marcos takes pride in different sectoral progressions that seemed to imply an improvement in the country’s well-being, he acknowledged that the country still faces many problems that he aims to solve. Even so, several other prominent issues were only mentioned in passing or completely missing from the speech.
Among these were the topics of drugs and crime. Marcos expressed that the notorious war on drugs had “taken on a new face” and was now geared towards the rehabilitation and reintegration of drug users. However, he failed to address the fact that there have been more drug-related deaths in his administration thus far compared to Rodrigo Duterte’s final year in office. There was also no mention of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war in spite of the Hague-based tribunal having ruled to continue the probe just a few days prior to the SONA.
To bolster his promises of a “new face” to the drug war, Marcos instead focused on enumerating reforms that would improve the quality of the country’s healthcare sector. For instance, he highlighted that an increased number of specialty centers were to be built—the first being a multi-specialty hospital in Clark, Pampanga. Alongside improving health infrastructure, Marcos stated that much was being done to expand medical and nursing education programs in the country.
Another promise Marcos made during the SONA was the distribution of COVID-19 health emergency allowance to healthcare workers, though he did not disclose any concrete measures or time frames through which this would take place. The healthcare emergency allowance has long been a hot-button issue in the sector, with civil groups airing multiple pleas for improved working conditions as the country faced a shortage of healthcare workers throughout the pandemic. The Marcos administration has proposed a few controversial solutions thus far, but nurses’ groups and health experts say that these plans avoid addressing the sector’s core issues.
Other pressing humanitarian concerns were also completely absent in the SONA. Under Marcos’ administration, violence and harassment toward media workers continues to run rampant. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) recorded a total of 84 attacks against media workers from June 30, 2022 until July 22, 2023, a higher statistic compared to the attacks recorded in the first 13 months of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency.
Calls for accountability
As previously mentioned, the SONA serves to help the masses evaluate the government’s ability to uphold the promises it makes. In turn, the government must maintain full transparency in all of the actions it undertakes. This becomes even more important as the Philippines consistently remains a “significant decliner” in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.
The president’s words seem to echo this sentiment by stating that law enforcers who were involved in illegal activities such as smuggling and drug trade would be replaced by individuals who have “unquestionable integrity” and can be trusted with fulfilling the responsibilities they have been given. Despite Marcos airing these ideals however, he has stayed silent on any issue related to his late father’s dictatorship such as the family’s ill-gotten wealth or human rights violations.
The passing of the Maharlika Investment Fund into law has ignited further discussions and questions on where the Marcos administration’s intentions truly lie. Lawmakers and experts pointed out several gaps and issues within the fund’s legal structure, particularly its potential to be used as a pathway to corruption. Prior to the SONA, the Maharlika Investment Fund also sparked controversies due to President Marcos Jr. deeming Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno unsuitable to run the fund, contrasting the letter of the law.
The president ended his speech with the line, “Dumating na po ang bagong Pilipinas.” The type of image this statement portrays will depend on which issues and sectors are heard and addressed. Ultimately, while Marcos surges on toward a ‘New Philippines,’ many still worry that they are being left behind.
