Dear Mr. President

First, let me congratulate you on your fourth State of the Nation Address (Sona).

For the first time, the expletive meters of mainstream media did not go on overdrive with the number of cuss words you spewed — only seven out of the many thousands of words included in your one-and-a half hour presidential address. This is quite a feat, considering your propensity to release a volley of foul words with every statement you made in the past Sonas, and in your daily ruminations, or what passes as your serious thoughts on national issues.

But there are some things I need to bring to your attention.

At the time of your Sona, hundreds of representatives of the displaced families in Marawi also held their own gathering to present what they consider as the real “State of the Marawi Bakwit” (Sombak). “Bakwit” is a Visayan word for evacuees, but has now become a common word to refer to displaced populations in many conflict-affected areas in Mindanao.

In their Sombak, the Marawi bakwit gave you an overwhelming failing grade on many of the things that you have promised them after the siege ended. You have failed them, big time.

For more than two years, Mr. President, the members of the bakwit population in Marawi have made their voices heard far and wide, even to international donors and humanitarian agencies. But they felt that the national leadership has chosen not to listen to their plight of having to stay in already tattered tents and transitional shelters.

In your latest Sona, you spun another yarn about the truth why the Marawi siege happened. You said that it happened after a composite team wanted to arrest some drug lords there. Isn’t this an admission of the use of inordinate state military force to get rid of a few lawless individuals? Was this a demonstration of your war on drugs writ large, causing the death of thousands and the displacement of 200,000 more individuals?

And why single out Marawi—when there are drug lords everywhere in this country, and in places within your and your security agents’ purview?

By the way, I am using the possessive pronoun here because you always like to express ownership of the country’s security forces, as if they are yours, and only provide security for you, and not for the greater majority of Filipinos who become insecure when there is an overwhelming presence of security agents around them.

In Jolo, Sulu, more than 18,000 soldiers (more or less 11 battalions) are deployed. In my latest visit there, I saw that at least five soldiers patrol every corner of Jolo’s narrow roads. And despite heavy military presence and tight security measures in all buildings there, the bombing in the Jolo cathedral happened.

You also said a water crisis is quite awful, because it makes your girlfriend “smell like hell.”

Mr. President, your girlfriend is not the only constituent of this Republic. You are President of more than a hundred million people, 27 percent according to your own statistics are living below the poverty line. These poor people—in Manila, in Cebu and in Mindanao—are suffering because they do not have adequate supply of water for their daily survival needs. You could have at least cited this to accentuate the primordial importance of addressing the water crisis immediately.

But even without a water crisis, we cannot be sure that foul mouths with an oversupply of misogynistic remarks and cuss words will be cleansed. Even oral antiseptics will not do the job—foul mouths will always reek of misogynistic stench all the time.

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