SONA II

Friday, 29 July 2011 05:24

Written by Neric Acosta

By most accounts, the second State of the Nation Address of President Benigno Aquino III, coming a full year after his historic rise to the presidency as the country’s 15th head of state, drew raves for its forthright prose in the national language, its forceful tone of leadership, and its inspiring call to national action and solidarity.  For many pundits and media commentators – or a public at large – there was not much of a pre-SONA hype, perhaps even a downplaying of expectations of what the once-reluctant, shy presidential candidate had to convey as he faced the nation in the yearly democratic ritual.

But PNoy, as his presidential sobriquet evokes, delivered in large part for the Pinoy Everyman – speaking in flawless Filipino.  For a full 53 minutes, notwithstanding a somewhat pedantic and lengthy recitation of his administration’s first year of achievements, the President decidedly managed a connection with the national audience with doses of anecdotal humor and notes of levity alongside the overriding, earnest admonition to those who insist on the “wang-wang” of corruption and betrayal of the common good.  A rather caustic columnist admitted that the speech and the largely resolute delivery itself went beyond some initially low expectations – and had a few surprise take-away highlights, like PAGCOR’s staggering billion-peso expense for coffee or the trouble-free call to appreciate and show gratitude for ordinary Filipinos’ simple courage to do the right thing everyday.

All told, the SONA was more than just a report to Congress as it opened its second regular session, or a drumbeating of a policy agenda for the year ahead, or a message to the world about the directions the country has set itself to take.  The SONA this year, quite simply, sought to reflect a people’s mix of their quotidian insecurities, and reinforce their hopes for their families, and reassure them that their trust in a new leadership, as manifest in the social contract of 2010, has not been misplaced.

Speaking in accessible, in parts folksy, Tagalog, as he did in his inaugural address and first SONA, the President came through with a consistent voice of authenticity.  For all of PNoy’s shortcomings or what detractors point to as his idiosyncratic leadership style, the man comports himself with a genuineness that can come across as being dogged or curiously stubborn. Perhaps that sort of obstinacy, if harnessed well, is the best space of leadership from which an agenda of government anchored on curbing corruption and demanding accountability from all public officers can persist.

The SONA, even for its lack of an overarching vision and a corresponding definition of a policy roadmap, was roundly significant in three ways.  The President early on established a recapturing of his presidency’s raison d’etre, which is about restoring trust in government and making honesty and transparency key pillars of leadership.  Thus the reference to the wang-wang, the detested siren emblematic of official abuse of power, which he linked with the need to do away with corrupting entitlements and special privileges in the entire political system.

From there the SONA proceeded to an enumeration of key results of the first year of the administration and the strides made in the fronts of economy-finance, governance and justice, poverty-reduction and social welfare, health, education and the environment, and as far as the assertion of Philippine territorial rights to the Spratlys, foreign policy.  And third, the speech sought to remind all of us of the verities of respect and responsibilities – for one another, and to the country – enjoining us to express gratitude to the average man, woman, or neighbor in the earnest line of duty and move out of the negative energies of divisiveness and pessimism and celebrate a sense of common purpose as Filipinos.

Depending on which quarter or sector speaks, the SONA could have also given emphasis on a number of ‘elephant in the room’ challenges: reproductive health and the population question; freedom of information; the peace process and a strategic direction for Mindanao’s development; climate change impacts and adaptation strategies; a clear foreign policy; and an overall macro-economic framework. These would have decidedly help craft a visual of a country in the mid-term and over the next decade or two.

Even so, the message that sticks is clear: the Aquino presidency, as a political scientist posits, put its stake on the fundamental restructuring the rules of the game, or making the game, as it were, more functional, open and fair.  This essentially translates to the ‘house-cleaning’ or ‘house-fixing’ that government must first do, clearing the detritus of the previous administration’s excesses and depredations.  In other words, the SONA sought to impress that good governance is the linchpin of leadership and institution-building: with good governance, investments will flow and the business thrives, public services are enhanced, inefficiencies are corrected, public resources are better utilized, and povertyreduced.   This may well be a clearer substantiation of the defining campaign slogan of “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”

If for that alone, the message of the second SONA was significantly resonant – in a loudly positive, wang-wang kind of way.

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