President Benigno Simeon Aquino III delivers his message during the Oathtaking of new members of the Liberal P …
A president’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) revolves, as it should
be, on the current national situation, as seen from the vantage point of
the leader of the nation. In the same breath, it is a statement of the
president’s intentions on what he will do about it.
However,
often it is also a measure of a president’s performance in the past year
since the last SONA or even before, to the beginning of his term or to
the promises he made as a candidate. In this light, what he tells the
nation is as much a gauge as the silence on issues the rest of the
nation sees as important.
How does the Aquino government fare thus far?
In
March 2010, I made the following observations of the possible Aquino
government the then-candidate Aquino promises to establish:
“The
reform agenda is clearly with the Noynoy Aquino presidency.
Anti-corruption and clean government is his main campaign slogan, his
political base expects it of his administration, and the Aquino legacy
poses a challenge for emulation.”
“An Aquino
administration is expected to erase the various excesses of the Arroyo
administration, rebuild and strengthen democracy, and should provide a
stable policy environment for business. However, it will mean sacrifices
for sometime as the political body, the bureaucracy, and the business
community adjust to new rules of governance.”
“Advisers to the
president and his Cabinet are expected to play a major role in the
Aquino administration because of the relative unpreparedness prevailing.
However, coherence in both policy and implementation will come from a
shared vision of good governance and democracy—ironically learned from
the failed Arroyo administration.”
“A big advantage of the Aquino
administration is its distance from the traditional politics of his
contemporaries. It remains to be seen if this can be translated into an
actual model for a strengthened Philippine democracy and governance.”
These
observations, I think, have largely been proven correct and has
resulted to progress made in both areas of governance and macro-economic
development. However, there are two refinements I wish to make from the
hindsight afforded by the past two years of the Aquino administration.
One,
while the obstacles put up by the past Arroyo administration and its
allies have been swept aside, new challenges to the reform agenda have
appeared, this time in the form of various compromises some key
administration people made in return for political support in the 2013
and 2016 elections and, possibly, to feather their own nests.
These
accommodations are mostly with political dynasties or power holders and
with big business, such as (1) the toleration of practices of illegal
logging, illegal fishing, illegal mining, illegal gambling, and
smuggling, (2) the silence over or even support for
environmentally-dangerous technologies and business practices such as
coal plants, genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), open-pit mining,
endangered species smuggling, and coral/black sand mining, and (3) the
reluctance in undertaking asset reforms such as in land reform,
preserving municipal waters and coastal resources, community forest
development, urban resettlement, and agro-industrialization.
Two,
while Aquino himself has shown his sincerity and honesty in
governance—and this is perceived by the majority of the people as
such—much needs to be done in the area where he, crucially, staked out
his own legacy. In his own words in his inauguration speech:
“My
father offered his life so our democracy could live. My mother devoted
her life to nurturing that democracy. I will dedicate my life to making
our democracy reach its fullest potential: that of ensuring equality for
all.”
The democracy legacy means ensuring the participation of
the vast majority of the people in democratic governance and in the
enjoyment of economic progress. The third SONA will have to reflect this
legacy agenda for the next four Aquino years. Silence here means no.
Ramon Casiple is a well-respected political analyst. He is also the Executive Director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER).