An alarming SONA

President B.S. Aquino 3rd’s fifth  State of the Nation Address, or SONA as the annual event is known here in the acronym-happy Philippines, was significantly different than the previous four.  It followed the same basic pattern as the others— heavy on references to how belabored his administration is by inherited problems, and making liberal use of cherry-picked, and in some cases, utterly dishonest factoids to boast of limited achievements— but it was more emotional, more self-important, and as a result, far more alarming.

It was alarming for two reasons. The one that was not entirely unexpected was the almost complete lack of substantial vision in the speech. Certainly, there was no shortage of motherhood statements and vague triumphalism like “achieving positive transformation,” “the straight path to lasting and inclusive growth,” and “a new system that will benefit all,” but there was virtually nothing to define how these pep-rally ideas will be converted to measurable results; of the 10,214 words of the President’s speech (in its English version), only about 560 could be generously considered to describe plans for the near future.