Sona means Statement of Non-Admission

President Benigno Aquino III’s fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) can also be described as a Statement of Non-Admission—a statement of empty rhetoric, a statement of lies and deception.

P-Noy bent over backwards in defending the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) during the pre-Sona press conference that was held in Malacañang, but in the actual Sona he did not expound on the justness of the DAP. (I guess he found it unnecessary to do so especially before the House members and senators who themselves benefited from the DAP.)

Instead, P-Noy appealed to the hearts of the people by presenting himself as a martyr who was left with no choice but to fulfill a noble mission in the name of his parents, even as he called those who criticized him as obstructers to what he calls “transformation.” This was P-Noy’s way of diverting the attention of the people from what the Supreme Court had already ruled unconstitutional. This was an act of deception aimed at covering up the failure of the Aquino administration to address the country’s biggest problems.

I wonder how P-Noy could boast of the World Economic Forum being held in the Philippines while hundreds of thousands of Filipinos are being displaced or facing dislocation because of the so-called Private-Public Partnership (PPP). Is this what he calls an “economic miracle”?

I wonder how P-Noy could brag about improved labor conditions in the country while he continues to snub the workers’ call for a nationwide across-the-board wage increase. Did the President, by any chance, catch a glimpse of the myriad of workers marching in the streets during Labor Day?

I wonder how P-Noy could afford to make little mention of agrarian reform when it is a fact that landlessness remains the root cause of our country’s backwardness. Isn’t this enough to prove that for P-Noy, class interest is far more important than public service?

I wonder where in the world P-Noy summons up the gall to claim that we have gone far since he assumed office in 2010 while the country’s unemployment rate is soaring high. Is this how the DAP helped propel economic growth?

I wonder how P-Noy finds the nerve to take pride in the government’s response to the tragedy and devastation wrought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in Tacloban when the survivors from Tacloban themselves belie his claim. Didn’t he already apologize, in an earlier interview, for the government’s shortcomings in its response to Yolanda?

I wonder if P-Noy is cracking a big joke when he says that there’s no more classroom shortage in public schools. And in his Sona he didn’t even touch on the plight of public school teachers, did he?

And I wonder if P-Noy really intended to omit mention of the deteriorating conditions of public hospitals, the uncontrollable oil price hikes, the gross human rights violations and the worsening poverty from his Sona.

—DANIEL ALOC,

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