PINOY SIMPLE LIFE
STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS 2008 OF PGMA
These are some lines on the State of the Nation Address of PGMA. Ensuring Food Sufficiency, Extension of the CARP, Responsible Parenthood, Job Creation and Capabilities Building, Caring for the Environment, Bill of Renewable Energy, Health Insurance, Strengthening Good GovernanceThe eighth state of the nation address (SONA) of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo elicited different reactions. The poor are still hungry, lining up for rice everyday for a limited kilo. The expanded Vat is still there. If Vat was to be removed, lowering fuel prices by four to six pesos…Give oil companies a few weeks, and they will find excuses to increase fuel prices again and again and again until the decrease due to the removal of VAT will eventually be lost. So, there is still no effect.” Her speech had no soul, sad to say. Sona must provide direction on major concerns which depicts the state of the nation of the past year. “We do not need free education only. We need quality education at the elementary and high school level especially in public schools. Increase the number of class rooms, hire more ‘quality’ education graduate teachers, build schools in every barangay, and accommodate investments that will allow our graduates to work in their field of expertise. A nation could only attain genuine development if the state develops the capabilities of its citizens. The Philippine government should focus more on improving the basic education system (as well as social protection program as health security) and make it available to everybody. “The Arroyo administration has just thrown out the window its austerity program. In proposing a P1.4 trillion budget for next year, it has likewise reneged on its promise to balance the budget. The current economic crisis is the convenient excuse for Malacañang to ask for a 15 percent increase in its budget in 2009. The increase in the budget next year is meant - not to prop up the economy - but to fatten the war chest of the administration in the 2010 elections. GMA’s speech is same old story. I don’t feel any progress. There is no change in the clamor for wage increase. The prices of basic goods and fare are very high. Oil prices are being manipulated because if Shell and Petron are loosing in their business, why it is that plenty of small players in the oil industry are emerging. Progress is not felt by the people. If you look at what’s happening, the cost of fare is very high. She must continue to do all she can for the rural as well as urban poor. For me tenants mast be empowered to become agribussinessman by allowing their land to be used as collateral, the farmer should give them a morality as free human being. Health insurance, this is the most important protection to the poor that cannot be able to cure such health problem, by giving discount in their bill medicines and allowing people to give a pair treatment.
I agree that every citizen should contribute in their own little way to make this country a progressive and prosperous nation despite the fact that I feel that the government failed in its own role in solving the problems that prevents the nation from going towards the right direction. I stand on my opinion that the government has still too much things to do in order to attain the goal that it has set. We have given it more than six years and the economic progress that it claimed to have accomplished is still short to reduce the nation’s poverty, to assure the citizens of a brighter future.
My role as a student is to study hard, make myself a productive citizen in the future and find ways by which I can help alleviate my family’s condition which means one household less that would depend on this government’s dole-outs and short term solutions for big problems.
By: Jojo Holanda
