A new state of the nation

I LOOK forward to tomorrow’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the way I look forward to the first day of classes: with excitement, an amount of fear, and with a readiness to be shaken and confused, discombobulated and flabbergasted by what I will hear.

And not just from President Duterte himself. I’m talking about what we will certainly hear from mainstream media, its resident commentators, and guest analysts; from social media where many only see and hear the bad about the President; from the “silent majority” that threatens everything from another EDSA to impeachment, angry as they are about the war against drugs, yet waiting for who-knows-what to actually go out to the streets and rally against it.