AT 4:30 this afternoon, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will deliver his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) before the joint session of Congress, and the Filipino nation will get to hear his administration’s comprehensive report on what it has done during the President’s first year in office, not to mention its plans for the next few years.
Depending on one’s advocacy, beliefs and yes, political bias, Filipinos who are closely following the workings of the Marcos administration have different expectations on what topics will be discussed today in the SONA.
Here are some comments:
The twin problems of better education and enhanced nutrition and health of Filipino children should be discussed by the President, it was proposed by a group of educators.
According to the Philippine Business for Education (PBed), the present “learning crisis” will require the Marcos administration to implement key policy measures to fill in the gaps.
“We must make education and nutrition our national concern and national priority. If we focus on developing our people first, many of our problems – from corruption to poverty, to low productivity to joblessness – will be easier to solve,” PBEd president Chito Salazar said.
PBEd also cited the need to improve coordination among education-related government agencies, such as the Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
‘It is almost a certainty that President Marcos will talk about the newly minted Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) which he just signed into law in time for today’s speech.’
While data from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund showed that the Philippines is among the 10 countries with the highest child stunting, with 28.8 percent of children under 5 years old being stunted or too short for their age because of chronic or recurrent malnutrition, we doubt if this will even merit a few seconds in the President’s SONA, considering the numerous important topics to discuss.
Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III thinks Marcos’ speech should focus on microeconomic matters which directly concern ordinary Filipinos. The senator from the minority bloc said the President should touch on the high prices of food, water, electricity, rent and transportation — things that are important for the people at the household level. He also wanted to know how the Chief Executive and his team are planning to solve gut problems like inadequate income, problems on education, unemployment and underemployment and the ballooning national debt.
While administration ally Sen. Raffy Tulfo believes that Marcos is doing an excellent job, he wanted to hear the President mention in his SONA when the nation could benefit from the many investment pledges that he received during his more than 10 official trips abroad.
It is almost a certainty that President Marcos will talk about the newly minted Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) which he just signed into law in time for today’s speech. Although he had explained the advantages of the Fund during the signing of the law, the President may yet do it again this time in the SONA.
For the rest of us who can’t be at the Batasang Pambansa, happy watching or listening.
