JEDDAH, 27 July — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's first State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday didn't contain anything earth-shattering.
Sonas are usually rather boring stuff anyway, an opportunity for whoever is the chief executive at the moment to mouth the usual platitudes of wanting to help the poor, lessen the national deficit and increase the economy's productivity. The real excitement usually takes place outside the Batasan building where the anti-government groups battle police with rocks and barricades.
This year's protesters were rather subdued, perhaps due to the fact that many of these groups had actually supported GMA during the Edsa II revolution last January. It was also a smart move on Arroyo's part to send out veteran NGO activist, and now DSWD secretary, Dinky Soliman to speak with the various groups gathered outside the House of Representatives. I'm sure that helped to defuse some of the tension there.
The tension arises from the fact that a majority of Filipinos are living in poverty, and new alarming statistics show that their number is growing, not shrinking. As GMA said in her speech: The number of unemployed Filipinos has ballooned to 4 million from 2.5 million four years ago, and the budget deficit has swollen to more than P140 billion from over P1 billion in 1997.
The president has good intentions of reducing poverty and providing more jobs to unemployed Filipinos, but for this to happen the government is going to have to find additional sources of income with which to fund its grandiose anti-poverty schemes. Notorious tax evaders, such as beer and cigarette tycoon Lucio Tan, continue to evade having to pay huge amounts of back-taxes that are due the government. That plus the millions of dollars that the United States used to pay yearly for using Subic Bay and Clark bases, are sorely hampering the Philippine government's ability to fund social services for the poor.
According to a recent analysis of long-term US military strategy in the Asia-Pacific region by Stratfor.com, Singapore is being built up as an Israel of Southeast Asia (i.e. capable of launching pre-emptive strikes against much bigger neighbors to protect its interests), while the US has not given up hope of someday returning to Subic Bay in the Philippines.
I really think the Philippine government should rethink its opposition to hosting US troops in Subic. If they allowed this, the government could negotiate a very good sum of money in yearly rent from the US military, and have the added advantage of having the presence of US military troops to scare off potential aggressors such as China. The Philippine government could even use the possibility of US military intervention to reign in unruly groups such as the Abu Sayyaf, who have been such a royal headache to the government.
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The Payatas children and GMA's shadow Cabinet
THE RATHER hokey and show-bizey stunt of bringing in three poor children from Payatas to stand near her podium while she delivered her Sona, was GMA's way of putting a human face on the poverty that she was talking about. Many viewers, who felt like they were watching a noontime variety TV show rather than a solemn speech by the nation's president, disliked it.
A colleague of mine said he detected the hand of UP sociologist Randy David in the whole exercise. As an unofficial adviser to GMA, David has exceptional access to the president's ear and it shows. After all, his wife Karina is the chairwoman of the Civil Service Commission.
A few days earlier I happened to catch the talk show "On the Record" on The Filipino Channel, a show co-hosted by David and Katrina Legarda. The guests that night were presidential spokesman Bobi Tiglao (my former boss at INQ7.net) and Secretary Soliman. The topic was the Philippine economy and what GMA's administration was doing to tackle poverty.
David, resplendent in a peach-colored cotton sweater, sat back like a wise sage and only occasionally asked questions about how the government was going to help "our kababayans."
Legarda, in all of her upper class gawkiness, kept turning to Soliman to ask her what the "masa" thought about this or that. Soliman was elevated into the high-priestess of the poor, as if Legarda never encountered them in her daily life. It is true that the Philippine elite lives in a bubble world of their own, but Legarda being a lawyer and TV host cannot be so out of touch with Philippine reality to not personally know anything about the "masa."
The conversation inevitably turned to the sudden resignation of GMA's appointments secretary Bing Rodrigo over bribery allegations involving the first gentleman Mike Arroyo. Tiglao, being the consummate diplomat that he has to be as GMA's spokesman, just denied the allegations and added that he didn't know why Rodrigo resigned despite being a close friend and former classmate of the president. David also avoided saying anything negative about the whole issue.
Mike Arroyo has now flown off to the US for a week, perhaps ordered by GMA to do so until things cool down in the Philippines. Arroyo keeps denying any involvement in a telecommunications deal that was ultimately vetoed by GMA herself, but these constant allegations of corruption damage the credibility of the administration and GMA herself. Hopefully, Arroyo won't be the Achilles heel of the president, just like Asif Zardari was to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
As for David and Tiglao, it seems clear that they form part of GMA's shadow Cabinet that advises her and writes speeches for her. It is perhaps the first time in recent Philippine history that a group of newspaper columnists from a single paper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, had such enormous influence and clout on a president. Tiglao used to write a column for the Inquirer, as well as heading the paper's joint venture website with GMA-Channel 7, while David still writes a column for the paper and writes speeches for GMA. Others that GMA probably listens to closely are Inquirer columnists Amando Doronila, Conrado de Quiros and Rina Jimenez-David.
Of course, GMA has her regular Cabinet which she consults, but it is this shadow Cabinet that provides her with a touchstone to what people really think of her and her administration's policies. Perhaps these are the best type of advisers to have, as not being a part of the government machinery, they are freer to be more critical and honest in their assessments. History will be the ultimate judge.
