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President Gloria Arroyo will not include Charter change in her State
of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, Presidential Management
Staff chief Cerge Remonde said Friday.
He added that the President and her entire
Cabinet are working to come up with a good SONA, which will be
delivered without frills and straight to the point.
Twenty out of the 149 priority infrastructure
projects mentioned by President Arroyo in her 2006 and 2007 SONAs
have already been completed, Malacañang reported Friday. The 20
projects have a total cost of P53.73 billion, while all 149 projects
are to cost P800 billion.
The rest of the multi-year, big-ticket projects
mentioned by the President under her “super regions” economic
plan are under various stages of implementation. Thirty of the
remaining 129 priority projects are scheduled to be finished this
year, while the rest will be “substantially completed” by 2010,
as Mrs. Arroyo leaves office.
Most big-ticket, economic development
infrastructure projects are programmed for implementation over
several years, thus their classification under “multi-year
projects.”
Remonde said the Arroyo administration doesn’t
deny the existence of the problems that the country has been facing,
adding, “We face many problems, [and] the President is doing a
well-crafted, well considered plan to address the crisis.”
Skeptical audience
Mrs. Arroyo will deliver her SONA amid a recent
Pulse Asia survey that said there is “much skepticism . . . as
regards the truthfulness” of the president’s SONAs.
Only 13 percent of 1,200 polled said they will
believe Mrs. Arroyo’s SONA statements.
Among the most skeptical of what President
Arroyo will say Monday are former Cabinet secretaries and ranking
officials, who formed the group Former Senior Government Officials.
During a forum at De La Salle University on
Friday, the group’s members credited Arroyo’s administration for
seven “curses.”
These are, according to a statement, the
“inability to feed its own people; worsening poverty and
increasing disparity between the rich and the poor; deteriorating
basic social services; corruption; abuse of presidential power;
illegitimate presidency; and robbing the nation of its dignity,
unity, and future.”
“Our 1987 Constitution states that there
should be an equal distribution of wealth and social services so as
to improve the quality of life of the people, but the President has
violated this by not fulfilling the promises of her previous SONAs,”
the statement added, stressing that the administration has failed to
provide food because of lack support for agriculture and rural
development.
Mrs. Arroyo had promised rice sufficiency and
food for every table in her 2001 and 2003 SONAs.
Instead, the Philippines has become the largest
rice-importing country in the world. The former government officials
also claimed that the country’s trade deficit has ballooned to
$1.5 billion in 2006 from $967 million in year 2000.
“The SONA is the President’s chance to
report on the true state of its people, but it should be taken as an
opportunity not only to detail the government’s achievements, but
instead give us an update of the promises were fulfilled,” said
Vicente Paterno, a Cabinet member during the Marcos government.
The group, however, recognized that the
country’s 7.5 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth last
year—the highest in 20 years—provided jobs but did not eradicate
poverty since only one million jobs were generated in seven years.
The former officials said the country needs one million jobs in
agriculture and fisheries each year.
Former Civil Service Commission Chairperson
Karina David, however, admitted that institutionalizing reforms in
the government, of which all the former officials were once part of,
cannot be achieved overnight.
SONA boycott
A spokesman for Estrada, Margaux Salcedo, said
he will not attend Mrs. Arroyo’s SONA, amid calls of militant
solons to boycott the activity.
“He simply believes that it would be a waste
of time to go to Congress only to listen to the fairy tale story of
the economy from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,” according to
a statement released also on Friday.
Salcedo added that rather than listen to Mrs.
Arroyo’s “lies,” Estrada will just listen to the truths from
the Filipino masses.
“The truth of severe hunger, the truth of
worsening poverty, the truth of rising inflation, the truth of a
worse economy, and the truth that no less than the World Bank has
assessed the Philippines to be the most corrupt country in East
Asia,” Salcedo said quoting the former president.
She added that Estrada believes that
proclamations of “progress and sound economic fundamentals”
would be like rubbing salt on the wounds of the hurting poor.
Perceived threats
The Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of
the Philippines said it does not see any threats during the SONA,
aside from the possible commotion from the protesting militant
groups.
No similar threat is forthcoming from rightist
groups, said military intelligence chief Romeo Prestoza, adding they
only expect commotion between militants and the police’s civil
disturbance management teams.
But the national police in Metro Manila will put
its forces on red alert on Sunday.
The police’s Special Action Force and police
units in Central Luzon and Region 4-A (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas,
Rizal, Quezon) will also be on full alert, said police Director for
Operations Silverio Alarcio.
He added other police units would be on
heightened alert status. In other parts of the country, commanders
will have the discretion to raise their respective alert levels.
At least 6,000 Metro Manila policemen will be
deployed to secure major roads and sites where protesters are
expected to converge on Monday.
The military in Metro Manila will also put on
standby 2,000 troops to augment the police force. Some 600 civil
disturbance management personnel will also support policemen.
Maj. Gen. Arsenio Arugay, the military chief in
Metro Manila, had earlier said security forces were on the lookout
for possible attacks by the New People’s Army units.
Classes cancelled
Classes have been suspended in 22 schools in
Quezon City on Monday as a precaution against possible violence
during the SONA. The Department of Education made that decision also
in anticipation of heavy traffic around in the Batasan Complex,
where the President will deliver her address.
An Education official said government will allow
private schools administrators to decide whether they too will
suspend classes Monday.
-- Angelo S. Samonte, James Konstantin Galvez, Maricel V. Cruz
and Llanesca T. Panti
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