“For more than an hour, the SONA was filled with a recitation of achievements, some true, many still promises”
It started very well, with a candid admission high GDP rates mean nothing to people who are hungry and cannot cope with inflation, particularly in food and rice.
But the prescriptions were the staple of many previous SONAs and every agriculture secretary’s repeated pronouncements.
The issue is really in the implementation of all these prescribed solutions, which in the last two years, and even when our president was the agriculture secretary, was quite spotty.
Kadiwa where cheap rice and a sprinkling of vegetables are sold in a few outlets will be expanded all over the nation, our president promised.
Now with Typhoon Carina raising the requirement for relief to flooded communities, I wonder where the NFA and the DA will get the rice that they will sell at tremendous loss.
The farmers federation which is against the recent executive order granting “open sesame” for rice imports via a reduced 15 percent tariff, computed that if the 4P beneficiaries would be given 29 peso rice, the daily loss to government would amount to 220 million pesos, based on NFA’s buying price of palay.
Figure that out in a year, and wonder where the funds will come from.
But don’t worry, USDA estimates we will import 4.7 million tons of rice this year, far more than the 3 million shortfall the president said is standard. Hope that 45 to 60 pesos will go no higher with Carina now and other typhoons later in the year.
Still, DA spokesman ASec Arnel de Mesa the day after declared that the promise of 20 pesos per kilo is still forthcoming. Come on.
For more than an hour, the SONA was filled with a recitation of achievements, some true, many still promises.
Those that were implemented were not necessarily new initiatives; most were handed down by the previous two administrations and completed in the current leadership’s term.
The newly signed procurement law intends to plug leaks that cause delays, shoddy products and projects, even promote corruption. Again it would depend on the implementation of the new law, as the “wa-is” in government will always find ways and means to go around the law.
As it was when PDAF was declared illegal by the Supreme Court after the pork barrel scam where invisible projects were turned into gold by senators and congressmen, many of them still in government, elected by voters who never learn and never discern or are hoodwinked by creative ads, pure name recall and even crazy dancing.
Worse, pork has been pre-fabricated into the “president’s” budget because the DBM and the Cabinet prefer to talk turkey with powerful solons even before the NEB is submitted to Congress. Then during budget deliberations in both houses and in the bicameral conference committee, the insertions become larger and larger, transferring funds here and there, and into “unprogrammed” allocations.
Yet, as in the example of Philhealth funds where the president was eerily silent, “unused” monies as a result of non-feasance are now being shanghaied to fund unprogrammed allocations, e.g. pork.
The diplomats applauded the declaration that in the fight against illegal drugs, “extermination was never one of the policies.” Nice soundbite.
Maybe because the pushers had been exterminated in the previous government, he he he. But how come the illegal trade continues, and with many policemen back to their involvement in drugs and other crimes?
The firm resolve about the WPS, recited before foreign audiences before, was met with a standing ovation, preceded by one over-enthusiastic congressman starting the ovation.
Truly, it was a SONA for the immediate audience.
Still the day after, Beijing was disputing our DFA’s interpretation of a modus vivendi where in truth and in fact, “coordination” means prior information to the “enemy” on our re-supply missions, short of asking permission.
Then the banning of POGOs, which met with even greater applause and prolonged ovation capped with cheers of “BBM!”. Predictably, Tuesday’s headlines were all about the “extinction” of the POGO invasion.
The morning after, the “masa” who do not care or even know little about this thing called POGO wonders how the SONA will uplift poverty and stave off involuntary hunger.
