2nd State of the Nation Address 2011

That the speech was in a language close to the hearts of the majority means that PNoy, the President of the Philippines & public servant wanted to communicate to every Filipino.

 And talking about language, yes every Filipino, who has had primary school and owns a television understands our Filipino language.

 So, let me recount the words in the speech that I will hold the President accountable for in the next year and beyond.

 The speech will be remembered for posterity for the vivid branding of the abuse of authority mindset as exemplified by the indiscriminate use of the siren or wangwang.
 Henceforth, corruption and the abuse of those in power and authority will now be called the wangwang mentality.

 The report about the drinking of the billion peso worth of coffee is the ultimate in abuse of entitlement in government and government owned & controlled corporations.

 I noted highlights in the State of the Nation Address that should matter and here is my rundown:

 Food security is couched in the goal of producing and buying rice here.

 The single digit unemployment rate of 8% last year is now down to 7.2% this year.
A million and close to half jobs were created this year.

 The word for environment was about trees and floods.
A stipend program for the safeguarding of trees while farmers are waiting for the harvest of coffee and cacao will be offered to informal settlers.
So, is this an offer for the urban poor to relocate to farms?

 As to revenue generation through taxes, that this government will be paying attention to tax evasion by doctors, lawyers and businessmen is an iconic gesture that should send a strong message to correctly establish the ideal relationship between the government and the citizen taxpayer.

 Mindanao was represented as an issue about ending the practice of command votes for political patrons. The sample proposed solution is synchronization of elections by letting the candidates in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) run during the regular elections with the rest of the country. And for this P-Noy thanked Congress that the law for the synchronization of ARMM with national elections was passed.

 The program of government for the incoming year is spelled out in the budget that P-Noy will send to Congress a day after the SONA.
 Since the SONA is for the opening of Congress session this year, our President thanked Congress “ for passing laws regarding the ff: 
GOCC Governance, ARMM Synchronization, Lifeline Electricity Rates Extension, Joint Congressional Power Commission Extension, Children and Infants’ Mandatory Immunization, and Women Night Workers.”

 The rundown of the Legislative agenda are the following:
 “ We aim to give due compensation to the victims of Martial Law;
 to grant our house help the salaries and benefits that they deserve;
and to improve the system that awards pensions to our retired soldiers.
"We likewise support the expansion of the scope of scholarships granted by DOST to outstanding yet underprivileged students; the advancement of universal quality healthcare; the responsible management of the environment; and the formation of facilities that will ensure the safety of our citizens during times of great need and calamity….
"Our agenda also includes the development of BuCor, NBI, NEA, and PTV 4, so that, instead of lagging behind the times, they will better fulfill their mandate of public service.”

 Some "bosses" (read as: citizens) said that foremost of what they missed was vision & direction.
What about this?
 Pres. Noy said:
 “ We are steering our government in a clear direction.
A country where opportunity is available; where those in need are helped; where everyone’s sacrifices are rewarded; and where those who do wrong are held accountable.”

 I count as vision the agenda to end the culture of corruption.
That the culture of corruption will start to end in this P-Noy presidency is a both a program and a vision.
 My favorite is that Pres Noy is asking as us to be a grateful nation and to cultivate a gesture of thankfulness to everyone that does us a good deed.

The Philippines Now A Year After The P-Noy Aquino Presidency

An analysis of the Philippine situation now should be at once social, economic and political.
Let me start with the economy as it is the infrastructure of society according to still relevant classic sociologists.

 Aquinomics, according to economist Cielito Habito can be summarized into two & I quote,
“economics of business confidence and economics of fiscal responsibility.”

 As explained by C. Habito, the Philippines posted a growth in private domestic investment from zero in 2002-2007 to 37% now, with a corresponding drop in foreign direct investments and local government spending. The growth from investments is from the private sector and across all sectors, urban and rural, including the farming sector. The explanation for the drop in foreign investments is the U.S. flat economy and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

These two economies are our biggest foreign investors. Still, the increase in domestic private investment is a positive one. The “economics of fiscal responsibility,” accordingly is our budget surplus or under spending in government construction, for instance, which at first glance would mean a low absorbent capacity of this administration but not so because the 2011 budget was made by the Arroyo administration as the P-Noy crafted budget begins in 2012 yet.

 Last year registered the creation of about half a million jobs from the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Industry which also registered a U.S $9 billion Philippine income from the services sector. According to Ms. Marife Zamora, Philippine country manager of Convergys, there is still a lack of qualified human resources in this field who are good in English, computer savvy and logical thinkers.
 Still, about eleven (11) million Filipinos are still unemployed.

 On the political front, during the year, we have been a recipient of advisories against travel to the Philippines by foreign countries. The Manila Hostage Crisis became a symbol of sorts of the incompetence of our chain of command to handle a crime situation involving foreigners as victims.

That the tourism sector is into a “re-branding” of the Philippines is of positive note.

 Politics is mainly the stuff of our three branches of government.
According to P-Noy himself, the chief achievement of his administration, so far, is his policy of good governance and the restoration of public trust.
But, perhaps the snail pace pursuit of this “Ang Daang Matuwid,” may have been responsible for P-Noy’s drop in his net satisfaction rating by the SWS polling operation from a high of +64 in November 2010 to a low of +46 in June 3-6, 2011.

 Various committees in Congress are into investigations galore in aid of legislation : to name a few, the fertilizer scam, AFP scam, and lately the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes scam involving the clergy.

 The pillars of our justice system have not been able to resolve both old and new heinous crimes : Ninoy Aquino murder, Visconde massacre, Dacer-Corbito, Maguindanao massacre, etc.

 Last, but certainly, not least is the social services sector.

For women, the lingering delay in the passage of the Reproductive health bill is the ultimate test of the impotence of the lawmaking & policy making branches of our government. This is also a commentary on the failure of the P-Noy administration to muster political support for this piece of legislation from various political parties in Congress.

 That we are the last nation - state in this post modern world that does not have divorce for the majority speaks a million words of indictment of how feudal our leaders in position of power and authority are.

 As someone, who personally heard direct testimonies of about a hundred empowered parent leaders of the Pantawid sa Pamilya Pilipino Program or the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, I am adopting the view that this centerpiece program of the PNoy Administration is an investment in human resources to arrest poverty of the poorest of the poor of the current generation so that these children now in school will take care of the next generation.

Sheriff & Mayor Sara

My friends & I who have been working with the poor for decades now are, of course, on the side of Sara, our city mayor, who expressed her anger & indignation in a violent punching incident with a court sheriff executing a writ of demolition.

Barrio Soliman, ( now called Kapitan Tomas), site of the recent Davao City demolition was one of the first development sites of our own women’s center (PILIPINA Legal Resources Center) in 1984: those who came before us did community organizing & community based legal literacy there. So, it pains when spirits are demolished.

That is why a mayor using personal or official power to look at the plight of the poor is a renaissance of sorts & a powerful force to reckon with. Our social institutions are weak and not able to address so much poverty & social inequality.

The video which was aired relentlessly on television & painted a thousand words and comments in social media focused on the punching and so I said on Facebook: “The punching video missed the most important context : informal settlers stoning the demolition team to death. The sheriff ignored the oral command of the mayor to wait for a few hours. Why can't a sheriff wait? The mayor is chief executive of the city and in command. There is such a thing as reasonable force in defense of rights of "strangers," & citizens. More positive force Mayor Sara! 

The bigger picture that crystallized before our eyes: is due process.
The urban poor issues that we have worked for over two decades suddenly became the talk of the entire wired nation.
Our national campaign for a paradigm shift from ““right to housing “ to “right to the city” is potentially now a “brand.” It is a campaign that each of us has a stake in the survival & future of our city.
The city is for us and for our future generation.
As of last census, Davao City has a population of 1.28 million or 241, 509 households & growing at 2.8 per cent.

The Davao City housing backlog is 40,000 and 30% of all households belong to the informal housing sector according to the Shelter Development Framework Plan of the city. According to the Davao City Planning & Development Office, there are about one hundred fifty two (152) squatter colonies & very visible as an urban blight at a glance when airborne and from Davao gulf. We are the largest city in the world but just in area because only 35% of the total population occupy the 4% of the total land area of the city. Davao city’s vulnerable sectors are women, children, the elderly, the tribals and persons with disability.

But let me go back to defending Mayor Sara. Her action is defensible when put in social context. For this, I will defer to one of the founders of our center, lawyer Emelina Quintillan who said, & I quote

“Her act could be justified as impelled by passion & obfuscation.
 In defense of Mayor Sara Duterte, I found this ruling on an administrative case against a sheriff of the Metropolitan Court in Pasig. In Malmis v. Bungabong, the Court explained the proper conduct that sheriffs must exercise when performing their functions, “ viz:

"While it is true that sheriffs must comply with their mandated ministerial duty to serve court writs, execute all processes and carry into effect all court orders promptly and expeditiously, it needs to be pointed out that this ministerial duty is not without limitation.

In the performance of their duties, they are deemed to know what is inherently right and inherently wrong and are bound to discharge such duties with prudence, caution and attention which careful men usually exercise in the management of their affairs.

As agents of the law, sheriffs are called upon to discharge their functions with due care and utmost diligence because, in serving the court’s processes and implementing its order, they cannot afford to err without affecting the integrity of their office and the efficient administration of justice.”

Demolitions must be done in the most humane way possible, in the presence of a representative of a city government as required by law. That the city mayor was there to cushion the violent demolition is a good thing. Too bad, a sheriff could not wait for a couple of hours for the mayor who wanted to be there with her constituents whose homes were to be demolished.