The Sona and the 100-millionth Filipino

On this day, the 100-millionth Filipino will be born, officially making the Philippines the 12th most populous country in the world and, in the words and contention of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): “presenting both challenges and opportunities.”

Some may even now be foaming at the mouth, alarmed at the implications of feeding, housing, clothing, educating and caring for 100 million people. This is because even before this milestone our families and the country as a whole had proven inadequate in—if not incapable of—looking after our people, more than half of whom are under the age of 25. The 54 percent of young Filipinos make for a huge “dependency” burden—young people still in the process of growing and maturing and in need of support and upbringing, still unable to productively contribute to the building of our nation.

But not all is lost, says Klaus Beck, the UNFPA country representative. The 100-millionth Filipino also “presents an opportunity for all partners and stakeholders to make the right investments in people now so we can prepare the groundwork for thriving, sustainable cities, productive labor forces that fuel equitable growth, youth that contribute to the wellbeing of economies and societies, and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities.”

The key phrase is of course the need “to make the right investments in people now,” today and not tomorrow, long before our children and grandchildren mature into adulthood and begin confronting the various challenges we face.

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Doubtless the 100-millionth Filipino will be foremost in the mind of P-Noy as he delivers his State of the Nation Address tomorrow. It’s always an event considered a milestone in every administration, but tomorrow’s address will be even more crucial as the President faces a wave of protests over the issue of “pork barrel” funds, and confronts his lowest point yet in public opinion approval—after years of glowing post-honeymoon numbers.

How does he propose to look after 100 million Filipinos? What conditions can he lay down to make sure that even with 100 million—or more—Filipinos, the country in the future will thrive and prosper, with all our young people growing into the life they deserve, creating the conditions for a better Philippines?

Of course, much of any Sona consists of a report card on the achievements of an administration, with the president making an accounting of his (or her) policies and programs. But any Sona also needs to be about the future, and about a president’s plans on how to arrive at that envisioned future. And with elections looming in 2016, tomorrow’s Sona will also form part of the coda to history’s final evaluation of the P-Noy administration.

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Meanwhile, there is the present crisis to face. I know I expressed the wish earlier that the President should shut up already about his justifications and defense of the DAP or the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

Often called the executive’s own version of the “pork barrel,” the DAP is an offshoot of the revelations made by whistle-blowers—later confirmed by the Commission on Audit and the anticorruption Ombudsman—that senators and House representatives, colluding with some department officials and dummies of fake NGOs, had stolen billions from government coffers in the guise of allocations for the legislators’ PDAF or Priority Development Assistance Fund.

Among the senators implicated in the scandal is  Jinggoy Estrada who “kicked the hornet’s nest” when, while defending himself from charges of misusing the PDAF, accused the executive department of misusing public funds with the DAP.

The DAP, he said, was used to “bribe” senators to vote as the P-Noy administration wished in favor of an impeachment against former chief justice Renato Corona. In one master stroke, Estrada turned the tide of the PDAF scandal, not only roping in the P-Noy administration to the circle of the guilty, but changing the focus of public ire.

Of course, the senator, along with two colleagues and a host of supporting characters, is now in detention. But it’s the Aquino administration finding itself against the ropes, parrying blows. And of course P-Noy will use the opportunity presented by the Sona—as he has with every public event in recent memory—to air once more his reasons for approving the DAP.

Many of those in the audience will be legislators who doubtless knew about—and benefited from—the DAP long before Estrada lobbed his grenade. Others will be Cabinet members who participated in the divvying up of DAP funds. But the entire country (presumably) will be listening as well, waiting to see if they could be convinced with finality that there is an innocent story behind the scandal.

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To go by Justice Marvic Leonen’s concurring opinion in the Supreme Court decision finding the DAP unconstitutional in parts, the DAP was a response to the need to make money available to government agencies to “effectively and efficiently use their funds within the soonest possible time so that they become relevant to the purposes for which they had been allotted.”

What the Supreme Court found unconstitutional were three acts and practices under the DAP which involved the use of funds declared as savings before the end of the fiscal year, as well as “cross-border transfers” of savings from the executive (Malacañang) to other branches (Congress and also the judiciary), and the use of funds not covered by the General Appropriations Act.

But neither the DAP nor the National Budget Circular 541 (creating the DAP) was declared unconstitutional.

Still, I suppose we’re going to hear more from the President about this tomorrow (Monday).