Still defending DAP

Most Filipinos, looking back on their childhood, will remember a phrase frequently delivered by parents, usually as a prelude to a spanking.

Whenever I tried to defend myself from “charges” of wrongdoing or mischief, my mother (the disciplinarian in the family) would utter these words: “Tama na!  Sumasagot ka pa!  Tanggapin mo na  ang  kasalanan  mo! (Stop it! You have the gall to answer back! Just admit your mistake!)” The message, I gather, was that it was bad enough that I committed the transgression, but seeking to defend myself, or argue my way out of punishment, was adding fuel to the fire, being a sign of disrespect and stubbornness.

I am not old enough to be P-Noy’s mother, but I might as well deliver the same message (as I write this, it’s a few hours before the State of the Nation Address) just before he delivers what some personages have called the President’s “most crucial” speech of his presidency.

Commentators have speculated that the defense of the DAP or Disbursement Acceleration Program would dominate the contents of the Sona. Apparently, P-Noy feels the message hasn’t sunk in yet, despite the many times he has explained himself and his Cabinet, especially to the poorer sectors of Philippine society.

Popular sentiment, it seems, has been shaped by the tsunami of commentary and denunciation following the Supreme Court ruling that parts of the DAP are unconstitutional. “Unconstitutional” is a heavy word that drips with implications of illegality and criminal offense; even P-Noy has uttered in his defense that the “unconstitutional” action was motivated by a desire to get the economy out of the doldrums and jump start economic activity. Good intentions, in other words.

But the more P-Noy explains himself, the guiltier he looks. And the Filipino public is getting exasperated with the use of his bully pulpit to defend himself and the members of his official family. And while the solicitor general has dutifully filed a motion for reconsideration with the high tribunal, P-Noy should simply sit back and let the wheels of justice grind through their slow and painstaking ways.

It’s harder than it sounds, though. And it will take a lot of maturity on both sides to ensure that the conflict of opinions does not flare up into a full-blown crisis.

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STATE of the nation addresses are not just meant to give the President a forum to “report” to the nation on the progress made in the past year. In a more specific goal targeted at his most immediate audience—the legislators gather at the Batasan—the President is also expected to make use of the Sona to “submit” his legislative agenda, to highlight his priorities and push for their early passage.

Among these priority areas, say commentators, the most urgent and vital is the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), now the subject of further negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) panels in the peace talks.

For the government, chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer has said they are finding “good solutions to the sticky issues,” adding that they had made good progress on two important articles: on fiscal autonomy and on the structure of the Bangsamoro government.

“The GPH [Philippine government] and the MILF are both committed to continue the work until the draft BBL is finished so that it will be submitted to the Office of the President in the soonest possible time,” Coronel-Ferrer added. She likewise apologized to Congress for the “longer time” they’re taking in submitting the draft law. Earlier, the panels and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process said they would submit the draft bill in plenty of time to allow for its passage and for the establishment of the Bangsamoro government before the elections in 2016.

But as political analyst Popoy de Vera said on TV, if in previous months the administration was confident of having the draft BBL passed by Congress, in this short while the landscape and the atmosphere have changed drastically. In short, De Vera said that legislators may be showing more spirit this time around with a beleaguered executive in greater need of congressional support. Thus, no matter how praiseworthy the draft legislation is, Congress members may feel it still worth their time and effort to gain as many favors as possible by “negotiating” over key pieces of legislation.

* * *

I HOPE this doesn’t happen.

Even if elections are, quite literally, just around the corner, with putative candidates already making their preparations to run for office, there remains a lot on the plate of the President.

The BBL is just one item on that plate, and it is crucial as failure to pass the law on time would set back the efforts to end the decades-old conflict—perhaps to a point of no return.

Others would be the pending “freedom of information” law, already many years in the waiting, which many believe to be crucial to the drive for more openness and accountability from government. It had always puzzled me why P-Noy, of all presidents, would be reluctant to push this law, he who talks about the “daang  matuwid” every chance he gets. Prospects for passage apparently look brighter these days, but Congress leaders must work double-time to maneuver the labyrinthine path that legislation needs to take.

A legislator says that in her talks with “ordinary folks” in her district, the things people complain about center mainly on “quality of life,” specifically the prices of rice and other basic commodities, power outages, and joblessness. It’s quite a basic list, and one any president would have his hands full meeting. Never mind defending himself from DAP-related brickbats.