President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is looking into the possibility of holding a separate State of the Nation Address (SONA) with various stakeholders, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said Tuesday.
Speaking in an interview on ANC, Zubiri said two Cabinet secretaries told him about the plan to conduct a SONA with stakeholders.
Zubiri said the President wants to do another one with a full Cabinet slate on stage to discuss issues with the different sectors, including the diplomatic corps and various industries.
At the same time, Zubiri defended the President against criticism for not mentioning his administration’s anti-corruption campaign.
“You don’t have to say we’re going to strengthen the anti-corruption program. He said it in his speech if you listened carefully. He said that he wanted to plug the tax leakages. Tax leakages are through either inefficiency of tax collection or corruption or both,” Zubiri said.
The Senate leader noted that ease of doing business is another way of saying the government will strengthen its anti-corruption policy.
Asked why the President did not mention the drug war, zubiri said each administration has its own set of priorities.
President Marcos has enumerated his own agenda which focused on agriculture and sound fiscal policy, he said.
“Each administration has their focus and priority,” Zubiri said, noting that President Duterte had mentioned the war on drugs in all his SONAs, with one being even two-and-a-half hours long.
“So, I believe the President would like to focus on other issues he feels are equally important,” Zubiri said.
Senator Juan Edgardo Angara described Marcos’s first SONA as “comprehensive.”
“I hope this list will be the X factor to pass the bills on land use code, and the budget reform bill, among others,” he said.
Former Financial Executive Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) president Francis Lim said that the President’s plans for the economy was a “very good roadmap.”
In an interview on CNN Philippines, Francis Lim said he was satisfied with the economic reforms that Marcos had laid out in his first SONA.
“I think it shows his political will, and the fact that he is surrounded by good economic managers as shown by his appointments,” Lim said.
Lim said that everything that Marcos had said about the economic reform package was impactful to him, specifically pertaining to the CREATE act, amendments to the Public Service Act, and making the Philippines an investment destination.
Lim said that investments will help the Philippines to recover from the pandemic and keep more Filipinos employed.
“All those ingredients are clearly spelled out, some of them were very courageous, and it just shows that he has a roadmap that will make him succeed,” Lim said.
Agriculture groups called on President Marcos to repeal the Rice Liberalization Law after his first SONA, calling his agriculture address vague and lacking.
Amihan Secretary-General and Bantay Bigas spokesperson Cathy Estavillo said Marcos’s campaign promise of lowering rice prices to P20 was “unattainable” and his programs were “unclear.”
He said they were waiting for the President to mention P20 rice in his speech or for him to repeal the law that liberalized rice importation, which hurts local farmers. Gabriellea Parino and Chelsea Din
A coalition of labor groups described the first Marcos SONA as “full of sound and with some fury but signifying nothing.”
In a statement, Nagkaisa Labor coalition spokesperson Rene Magtubo the President’s speech was a belated miting de avance in which Marcos’s platform of government was finally revealed.
“In the speech were lists of promises that he should have discussed during his campaign but he never did. There is nothing in the speech that portrays the real state of the nation. Worst, no decisive plan to address inflation that is affecting the lives of the poor and ordinary workers. Neither aid nor wage increase can be expected in the near future to tide workers and their families during these difficult times,” Magtubo, who is also chairman of Partido Manggagawa, said.
Magtubo said that rampant contractualization of labor and violation of labor rights including red-tagging of union leaders and organizers were not addressed in the speech.
“The speech was primarily intended for legislators, investors and foreign diplomats, not at all for the vast majority of the working people. The State of the Nation is sound. But it was deafeningly quiet on wages, endo, and full employment,’ he added.
The President targeted a 9 percent poverty incidence and upper middle-income status of the country by the end of his term, but there was no mention if living wage and full employment are going to be addressed to make it happen, Magtubo said.
“It was strong on food security, but no mention of reversing import liberalization policy, including rice tariffication. There will be a rightsizing program in government. But there was no diet plan for fat bosses in the government who enjoy pork and perks. In short, very silent on corruption,” the labor group said. Gabriellea Parino and Chelsea Din
