Today we will hear more words, but tomorrow we will expect more action
Today is SONA day.
For a senior citizen like me who has witnessed eight Presidents deliver their annual State of the Nation Addresses, my appreciation of their speeches – finely crafted to account for their promises and accomplishments – has greatly evolved with age, experience, and life’s harsh lessons.
From the naivety of teen years, the idealistic irreverence during activist years, many transitions in my work and family life, I still have the heart of an activist but with a more developmental attitude.
I grew up during the President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. years, and, like most Filipinos, was always at the receiving end of the cyclical political and economic hits and misses and multiple natural calamities of the country.
Now that Marcos Jr. is now starting his second year as the 17th President of the republic, we are now confronting a more complex environment where the confluence of geopolitical conflicts, the challenges of post pandemic recovery, the impact of climate change, and the factors causative of inflation that are beyond our control. It makes you think, are we getting better or worse?
In contrast to the last President, the Marcos Jr. administration is showing encouraging strength in governance with a more defined legislative agenda.
There are openness collaborative partnerships and ongoing engagements with the private sector whose talents, resources, and innovative nature are the real drivers of economic growth.
We are seeing more civil society participation being strengthened by government agencies.
The people will be expecting solutions to their most urgent national concerns, which are mainly economic gut issues.
According to the June 2023 survey of Pulse Asia Research, Inc., the top concern is inflation (63 percent) hitting hard on every consumer’s daily budget.
To make ends meet amidst rising prices in food, transportation, and prime commodities, Filipinos want more jobs to be created (31 percent), gainful employment to support their personal and family needs.
This connects to the next concern which is reducing poverty (30 percent) wherein having a job may open opportunities for a better life.
The fifth concern is on fighting graft and corruption (25 percent), which has been a perennial issue in every administration.
Consistent with these findings is the lower approval rating on the actions taken by government on these same issues.
There are notably positive economic developments as June 2023 data shows inflation slowing down to 5.4 percent and unemployment going down to 4.3 percent in May 2023.
There is optimism in the business sector though there has been a slight waning of the overall confidence index measured by the Business Expectations Survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in the third quarter of 2023 which declined to 46.4 percent from 49 percent in the last quarter.
Identified factors were: the seasonal downturn in production and sales during the rainy season; elevated inflation; lower demand for consumer and intermediate goods; fewer construction projects; and high interest rates.
The BSP’s Consumer Expectation’s Survey Report showed consumers having a more pessimistic outlook.
The report said, “The sustained negative sentiment for Q2 2023 was attributed by consumers to their concerns over: (a) faster increase in the prices of goods and higher household expenses, (b) lower income, (c) fewer available jobs, and (d) the effectiveness of government policies and programs on inflation management, economic resilience, high-quality and well-paid job creation, and financial assistance to low-income households.”
The second year of President Marcos Jr’s administration is an opportunity to at least push forward with long term and institutionalized strategies that will positively reverse these economic national concerns which past administrations, including his father’s, have been passing on to the next political cycle.
There is also the opportunity to address key pillars of national security.
Critical to the current situation is food security which would need sweeping transformations in the agricultural sector.
The evolving geopolitical issues where the Philippines now plays a strategic role and how the President will define his independent foreign policy as a “friend to all, enemy to none” while balancing this with the Philippines sovereign rights being violated by China’s expansionist agenda is a prime interest of the global diplomatic community.
Undergoing a systemic digital transformation has been much pronounced by the President and how the government will invest in addressing a fundamental gap in digital infrastructure is an integrative enabler that will solve address bureaucratic, operational, and governance issues.
It will be interesting to hear how committed this administration is going to be given the bureaucratic resistance and policy barriers that are incompatible to digitalization.
As in every SONA, there are great expectations.
The real state of the nation is experienced by the people every day. Today we will hear more words, but tomorrow we will expect more action.