No pun intended in the title of this piece on President Rodrigo Duterte’s State of the Nation Address.
I must confess I did not listen to the rest of the President’s speech on Monday before a joint session of Congress, his second a after a year in office. I could not stand the man’s rambling, ranting and raving style. In my 28 years in the diplomatic service where I had the privilege to attend and listen to heads of state deliver speeches to parliaments and their constituents, I never heard such a rambling style punctuated by occasional expletives. I wonder whether the foreign ambassadors in the audience in Congress were appalled or amused. Many of them have been here for some time and surely they have a basic working knowledge of the Filipino language. For those who are newly posted to Manila, Communications Secretary said he would provide them with a translation of the President’s Sona. Will the choice expletives be included or deleted? Duterte’s speech which ran for two hours is reportedly the longest in Sona history.
How can I can write an objective critique of the content of the chief executive’s speech? I am not going to. What appears here are culled from some of the political analysts who persevered to stay with the President’s Sona all the way.
The central theme of the President’s speech revolved mostly on his “relentless, unremitting war on illegal drugs “ despite what human rights groups and the international community claim as the rampant extrajudicial killings of suspects who are not accorded due process.
So what we have here is one man’s notion of the State and not truly a report on the nation’s state of affairs as it is being steered by the president. But to be fair, Duterte has been head of state for only a year and in his plea for understanding, he asked to given a chance to deliver meaningful change in the remaining five years of his term.
From the analysts, I got the impression there were important issues and topics the President skirted or failed to mention. Foremost of these was where the country stands on the South China Sea territorial dispute or more specifically why we are not asserting our sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea considering we won a legal victory before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
There was also no mention of the end of “endo” or the onerous contractualization of workers which the labor sector is waiting for.
As it has been his propensity to use the podium as bully pulpit, Digong warned mining operators “to pay the right taxes and not rape the environment.” He also lashed out at leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines, National Democratic Front and the New People’s Army.
“Let’s stop talking, let’s fight,” said the combative Digong who also said that Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison has colon cancer. But from Utretch, the Netherlands where he is based, Sison denied he has cancer and instead said that it is the Philippine president who is sick as shown by instances of his disappearance from public view.
President Duterte, however after delivering his Sona, did talk to the rallyists and protesters gathered outside the Batasan. He asked them what else they wanted when he has appointed to key Cabinet positions leftist militants like Rafael Mariano as secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform. But unlike last year, the demonstrators were less friendly to Duterte. Disenchanted by undelivered campaign promises, the militant mob chanted their protests and burned Digong’s effigy forcing him to walk off the stage.
The President’s Sona on Monday followed the extension of martial law in Mindanao approved by Congress in a special joint session last Saturday. The extension was overwhelming approved by Congress but somehow there is an undercurrent of apprehension the congressional approval could be mistakenly interpreted by the President as the people’s consensus to extend martial rule nationwide.
This fear is shared even by some of the Maranaos who fled the Maute siege of Marawi. They want to return to their homes in Marawi as soon as the fighting ends and rebuild their destroyed homes during the two months of battle between government troops and the Maute terrorists. The Duterte administration said martial law in Mindanao is needed to wipe out the remaining threat of ISIS and their local allies to establish a beachhead in this predominantly, if no longer only, Christian country in Asia.