Assessing the Address
By Dennis A. S. Aguinaldo

AS PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her second State of the Nation Address, she confidently declared that the nation has surpassed its immediate crises under her leadership. The centerpiece of her address is the message of a "strong republic" adorned with statistics. It was introduced by the rhetoric of her poor beginnings and ascent via the accumulation of "fine stones."

The President was right when she said that during her first SONA, she delivered a different address than her predecessors. Last year, the economist-president delivered a speech that sounded like a "to-do list" proposed to the representatives and their constituents. This practice made it possible to measure the administration's performance against the measurable targets she has set. Effectively, she has framed any ensuing debate on the SONA on very realistic (as opposed to mere rhetorical) terms. Any decent reaction would therefore need to be framed in the context of concrete policies and issues. There was an appearance of transparency.

Despite the benefit of Macapagal's frames of reference, the SONA can still be viewed as an econocratic spin on previous SONAs, with the same rose-colored eyeglasses ground fine with seemingly infallible statistics. The second SONA issued a laundry list of previous targets and what became of them. However, it gave less measurable targets and gave way to vague generalities. Most of the concluding content lapsed into defensive rhetoric. We hear a president making sure everybody got the point that she made good. It was less forward-looking with the marked absence of a budget proposal and clear marching orders for the legislative assembly.

Groups within and outside the state have assessed her performance within her own referential frames. Undoubtedly, some of the targets she claimed for the administration were completed. However, a congressional oversight committee report discovered that, in some cases, "the administration has either redefined or adjusted targets to make them more achievable, insisted on time frames that put the administration in a favorable light, and engaged in 'plain cramming' in order to meet the targets at least partially."

It was not surprising that the SONA, despite its tone of administrative strength and nigh-total control, failed to excite the stock market where the indices of growth and investor confidence are more accurate. These misrepresentations and failures are not lost on the administration's critics. In fact, it actively engendered volleys of attacks from progressive groups, opinion-makers, and supporters of former President Estrada.

Especially after Macapagal's harsh verbal bipolarization of Filipinos between supporters and terrorists (and recently, communists), the progressive groups have been actively generating criticisms against the administration. The SONA provided an open ground for these discourses and counter-articulations. I collected the various pamphlets and flyers distributed during the march of several activist groups toward the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and Bayan Muna assembly before the Sandiganbayan. I also heard the statements issued during the protest rally. These materials were supplemented by the statements released to the press by the party-list representatives of Bayan Muna and visits to the updated websites of Bayan Muna, Bayan, Kilusang Mayo Uno, and other related sites. Thus, I will reflect their statements as the progressive SONA, an ideologically unified statement with details supplied by the member sectoral organizations.

The central symbol of the three Payatas children presented in last year's SONA, for example, is under struggle. The President bluntly confirms that promises made to these symbols of her war against poverty have been fulfilled. The research of activists state otherwise. The headline of the Philippine Collegian is a detailed report of the continued poverty of the children. Indeed, they are the very representation of the country's central problem and how the government has opted to dress it up with fifteen minutes of airtime and press-released dole-outs.

Macapagal presented her SONA in strong terms especially when describing wars on poverty, crime, and terrorism and controls on energy, pharmaceutical prices, tax evasion, and fiscal deficit. Serving to undergird the image of this strong republic are words of unification. These are clustered under the central metaphor of a singular, monolithic edifice, referring to the state, nation, tradition, and history. Thus, the usual call for unity in the SONA is stressed. But what is the substance behind these proclamations?

The progressives see in this declaration the looming shadow of Marcos' declaration of a "strong governance" especially since this is also premised on the released rationale of the drive to prosperity. With this and Macapagal's statement against the further administrative use of maximum tolerance, the progressives brace themselves against a renewal of a fascist, militarist rule. They cite violence against partymates, vicious military campaigns in the countryside all over the archipelago, and havoc, evacuation, murder, and wholesale terror wrought upon civilians.

Representative Lisa Maza also said that this strong republic is Macapagal's security blanket for the 2004 elections. The interpretations of Macapagal's movements are still tightly anchored on the perception that she will be running again. Indeed, all her calls to put a stop to politicking are invalidated by her own politicking. Without the moral high ground, all of Macapagal's statements, even her SONA and all its fine stones cannot but be construed as not the strengthening of a republic but of her machinery's chances of winning in the next presidential elections.

Macapagal's priorities are drafted along the lines of free trade and strengthening bilateral relations with the United States. Statements on ASEAN and other countries seem like mere footnotes on the overall agenda. This is considered prudent by some quarters especially since the US is the sole superpower after the close of the Cold War. The view from the Left is that measures of complete passivity to US-led imperialist globalization only benefits the superpower but leaves us utterly dependent on it, thus, making us more and more pliable to its demands. In the end, only the interests of the tiny but powerful elite in the Philippines are served.

Most of the debates are drawn along this line. Economic growth is seen as largely illusory. The President’s vaunted economics-related talents appear to be spent in manufacturing this illusion rather than promoting true and serious growth. The laborers and agricultural workers protest their unjust wages. Educational measures are also criticized for peddling an uncritical and submissive pedagogy. Free tuition fees are not enough to be considered free education since economic conditions still bar the impoverished pupil from finishing.

No one from these sectors sees, hears, or feels the supposed fine stones of the Macapagals: social justice, and social equality. Oppressed Filipinos only feel taste a bitter pill in Macapagal's lip service. In prioritizing kidnapping, smuggling, and power rates, progressive analysts see their central concerns ignored. The administration justifies the priorities with the overarching importance of establishing foreign investor and tourist confidence. However, protesters and progressive groups feel betrayed that the perennially unsolved need of agrarian reform, just wages, fair labor practices, unemployment, homelessness, and free education has been displaced by the interests of the prized few.

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