His State of the Nation Address took an hour longer than the half hour earlier announced by Malacañang. The President’s message came across as simple, but serious—particularly his all-out war against illegal drugs. But we didn’t hear anything that Palace Communication Secretary Martin Andanar said made him cry after reading the draft of the speech. If at all, Digong ad libbed to crack jokes and asides in Filipino; the diplomats in the gallery must have been puzzled.
But it was a good, straightforward speech that did not contain some of the mundane and inane (bordering on the insane) Sona of Digong’s immediate predecessor.
“We want the peace of the living but you [drug pushers]can have the peace of the dead,” said Duterte in his grim warning to those who are ruining the lives of the youth and spiking the crime rate. He vowed that the government campaign on illegal drugs won’t let up and will be relentless until the last drug trafficker is gone. More than 200 suspected drug pushers have been killed since the police started cracking down on the drug trade. Because of the similar manner in the way the suspects were killed—shot dead because they fired on arresting policemen—there is a sneaking suspicion the suspects were silenced so they couldn’t implicate some policemen involved in drug trafficking. Duterte himself has named five police generals involved as protectors of drug lords.
Another striking part of Duterte’s speech was making clear his administration won’t play the blame game on his predecessors.
“What we should do is to extract lessons from the past with an eye to applying them to the present and the future,” said Duterte. Although he did not mention former President Benigno S. Aquino III who skipped the Sona, it was an obvious reference to PNoy who during his term consistently blamed former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for all the ills plaguing his administration.
Arroyo, whose case was dismissed by the Supreme Court last week for lack of evidence, was in the Batasan audience together with former Presidents Joseph Estrada and Fidel V. Ramos, who has been named as special envoy to China. Duterte’s Sona did not dwell too much on the Philippines winning its case against China before The Hague permanent court of arbitration which rejected China’s sweeping claim over the South China Sea. He did not want to appear to gloat since he’s sending FVR to talk to the Chinese and work out a settlement that does not make China lose face in the international community. This is the right approach. Hopefully, Beijing appreciates this gesture and softens its hard- line stance on the South China Sea territorial dispute.
In his quest for nationwide peace, Duterte also announced a unilateral ceasefire effective immediately with the communist New People’s Army and to push through with the Bangsamoro Basic Law after it has been rid of its constitutional defects. This is a step in the right direction even as the President clarified that the BBL might have to give way or later be subsumed by his proposed federal form of government.
Duterte announced a raise in personal and corporate income taxes but there are those who wished he had instead increased the Social Security pension to P2,000. This was vetoed by Aquino just before he stepped down from office.
There were strange occurrences in this year’s Sona. For once, leftist militants did march on the Batasan venue not to protest but show support for Duterte because of his government program to address poverty and implement agrarian reform. With this pro-poor policy, Duterte also appointed some personalities identified with the cause of leftist groups.
Duterte also toned down the yearly fashion parade on the red carpet by legislators’ wives and sometimes by the female legislators themselves. His business attire only requirement and simple food fare after the Sona consisted of mongo soup and sweet native delicacies—no more lavish feasts at the expense of taxpayers.
Duterte struck the right chord to gain the support of the masses. He will, however, have to spell out specifically how he will implement his vision for reform. So many previous presidents have made such pronouncements for change but failed in its implementation during their six-year term.
The people, nevertheless, are counting on Duterte to be the first president to fulfill this promise. This is the nature of the Filipino—to be sanguine and still hope for change despite having been disappointed so many times before.