Out of place Independence Day speech

IN HIS Independence Day speech on Sunday, President Aquino claimed his one-year-old administration had laid the foundation of a “new chapter” in Philippine history underpinned by reforms designed to curb corruption and poverty.

He promised Filipinos a country free from corruption and a nation no longer like a paper boat “drowning in a sea of lies and anomalies.” The reforms have been put in place by his administration, he said, “to show freedom” for our countrymen. “True freedom is freedom from hunger, ignorance, poverty and lack of jobs,” he said. “True freedom is freedom with dignity and honor.”

Freedom was the central theme of his speech, but there was little in the speech to show that, during the last 12 months of his administration, the country has gone far enough to make these visions of freedom a reality. Many in the public who heard the speech shook their heads and were moved to ask the questions: how about the surveys showing that more people are complaining about their being poorer than they were in previous years? They also asked, where are the jobs?

The President counted among the reforms the synchronization of elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with the May 2013 elections; the expansion of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program which is criticized as no more than a cash dole-out program that does not produce goods and services; and the implementation of the “pocket open skies policy.”

This inventory of claimed accomplishments of the administration during its first year in office, as the keynote of the Independence Day celebration, seemed out of place amid rising tensions over the Spratly Islands. The Philippines and Vietnam have territorial claims to the Spratlys, and China has claimed hegemonic sovereignty over several islands in the South China Sea. The claims were causing concerns that the Philippines and Vietnam were moving swiftly into armed conflict with China.

In a speech for an occasion highlighting national sovereignty, President Aquino hardly mentioned anything about the bellicose war of words caused by the territorial disputes involving Chinese incursions into areas claimed by the Philippines. Rather than emphatically calling the attention of the Southeast Asian region and the international community to the aggressive Chinese incursions, the President chose to be parochial in his interests. He focused attention on the administration’s puny achievements, and fell back to the war on corruption, in which there has been only scanty success.

The Independence Day speech’s parochial focus prompted criticism that it sounded like a preview of the President’s second State of the Nation Address on July 25, an occasion where he could report to the nation his accomplishments and his policies and programs for the next year, after he failed in his first Sona to formulate his policies and outline his programs for the social and economic development of the country which has lost momentum in the first year of his administration.

The Independence Day speech, which offered the President an opportunity to set the tone of patriotic rhetoric, was trivialized by his whining about news media’s criticism over his dates and his penchant for sports cars and shooting range exercises with his cronies, who share his off-duty pleasures and trivial pursuits. The rhetoric and themes of the administration have not changed much since the President’s inauguration in June 2010.

His Independence Day speech was a rewording of his inauguration speech, of which the keynote phrase was “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” Last June 12, he said, “As long as the corrupt are not wiped out, the poor will remain in our midst. If we want to free our country, we must free the government and ourselves from greed.” He then lapsed back to pillorying the past administration.

“To make money, they would import twice the need and leave the rice to rot in warehouses,” he said. “The generals would be sent off money, but the soldiers who were in the line of fire were shot with holes-filled boots. The whole country was made to ride in a paper boat eventually to drown in a sea of lies and anomalies.” After a year of exhuming the evidence and exposing the skeletons in the closet of the previous administration, many are beginning to ask: Has the administration filed a single case in connection with the high-profile corruption cases involving officials of the Arroyo administration?

All that Cielito Habito, national economic planning secretary of the Ramos administration, can credit the Aquino administration as positive, is that it has “zero tolerance” for corruption. In a briefing to the Inquirer, businessmen and academics last Wednesday, Habito suggested that the administration take more than this to drive up economic growth, reduce poverty, bring down the inflation rate, create jobs and bring investments in.

In foreign policy, which is not the President’s strongest suit, his recent visits to neighboring countries have not helped reduce his deficit. He claimed after his visit to Brunei that the Philippines was gaining international recognition. Proof of this, he said, was that Brunei requested for assistance in branding products and Cambodia’s invitation for Filipinos to set up businesses there.

Much more is needed when he faces off with the Chinese on their interfering with the maritime activities of the Philippine Navy or Coast Guard in the Spratlys. He cannot use the corruption rhetoric and its linkage to poverty alleviation to stop Chinese marauding into territories claimed by the Philippines.