Just a cigarette break after President Duterte started his July 27 State of the Nation Address (SONA), you knew his heart and mind was not on the topic that has preoccupied much of the planet for at least one semester: the virus and its existential threat to humankind. His pet peeves had to get the sledgehammer. He readily tore into the Lopezes and Sen. Franklin Drilon and generally laid down the case for what genuinely preoccupied his waking hours the most — his self-proclaimed rage against the oligarchy and the drug lords, our general hopelessness against China’s military might and his obsession with the death penalty.
Not exactly what the Everyman expected to hear. From where the Everyman was cowering in fear, with his stomach grumbling and his paranoia over the virus getting more intense by the hour, the expectation was the President would use the SONA to present a pandemic-centered roadmap, with these general themes:
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