Aquino was like an Amorsolo with words

Everybody is talking about President Aquino’s State of the Nation Address  and, as always, the reaction is mixed: Allies applaud it but the opposition and the militants pan it.  I liked it not because of its contents, or the absence of topics that he should have addressed, but because of its simplicity and its delivery. None of the high-flown language or the soaring rhetoric that previous presidents used to court applause. The speech was a straightforward, almost hurried, recitation of facts. I only wish all of them were true. If they were, we are indeed on the way to change.

But all Sonas are like that. They are like drugs, or alcohol, or nicotine that give us a high, especially the speaker. The President is like a painter painting a beautiful picture of the nation, an Amorsolo with words. But the painting is only good to look at hanging on the wall. The reality all around it is very much different.

Instead of the beautiful pastoral scene with quaint nipa huts under spreading mango trees with happy men and women in colorful costumes doing everyday chores or dancing to stringed music, we see around us thin, hungry children in squatter colonies; we see garbage scattered everywhere; we see traffic jams in city streets; and we see bald mountainsides and polluted streams.

In the President’s words are Amorsolo’s beautiful rustic countryside scenes, but in the reality outside are Ang Kiukok’s skeletal men and dogs screaming in torment.

The President was indeed like a painter who painted only the beautiful and omitted the ugly, not like a photographer who captured the reality, including all the ugliness.

The President did mention interesting ugliness, like the previous Pagcor administration spending P1 billion for coffee alone. At P100 per cup, he computed, that would be 10 million cups over the last several years, he said, which would keep those who drank them still awake until now. That the nation’s 1.7 self-employed and professionals each paid only an average of P5,783 in income taxes, which means each earned only P8,500 monthly. Or beautiful figures, like the Department of Public Works and Highways, by judicious spending and having a work program for its projects, has so far saved P2.5 billion, or about P6 billion to 7 billion by year’s end. And that the rice shortage has been cut from 2.3 million metric tons to only 660,000 metric tons, which means we would import very much less rice this year.

But I wish he mentioned other important facts, like the Freedom of Information Act that would help very much his campaign against corruption. If the public has access to all the information about what is going on in the government, much of the corruption would be discovered and prevented.

I wish he mentioned where land reform is headed, but considering that his own family’s hacienda is embroiled in a struggle with farmers over land, I can understand his silence on it or his inability to point where his administration’s policy on agrarian reform is headed.

In fact, I don’t think he knows where his “daang matuwid” is headed. Straight to where? There is no roadmap.

Does he have an economic program beyond saying that he would attract foreign investments that would generate jobs? How would he attract them when the very high power costs in the Philippines discourage investors from coming here?

I wish he mentioned what is happening to the peace talks with the communist and Muslim insurgents. He mentioned that the incidence of car thefts has gone down but nothing about the extra-judicial killings or the human rights violations, except that victims during martial law would be compensated.

But P-Noy has five more years to go as president. Maybe he will improve as a painter, and as a president, in those years. Certainly, he is already better than the previous ones—if we can believe his words.

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One of the infrastructure projects that the P-Noy administration has reviewed and found a waste of taxpayers money are the Ro-Ro ports (for roll on-roll off sea vehicles) that the Arroyo administration has contracted with a French company to put up in 72 ports all over the archipelago as part of the nautical highway. This will indeed improve travel and the transport of cargo, thus lowering the cost of various products.

The new Philippine Ports Authority (PPA), after reviewing the proposed project, however found out that many of the modular, movable and adjustable steel ports would be exposed to rough seas in coastlines facing the Pacific Ocean. Those steel ports would not last long exposed to waves more than three meters high. In fact, that was one of the conditions of the French manufacturer—that the ports be located in sheltered areas.

The PPA also discovered that many ports already have concrete ports and adding steel ports would be superfluous and a waste of money. All that is needed to make them accessible to Ro-Ro vessels is to build concrete ramps, which the PPA can easily do cheaper and faster, using local materials.

But who chose those port locations? those pushing for the steel Ro-Ro ports asked. The PPA itself. That’s what the contract says.

But that was the previous PPA, the new one replied. This new PPA knows better.

Anyway, the steel ports would still be used in ports where they are needed, PPA said. The French company would still make money. That should make everybody happy.