`Is it really the people’s concern how he feels about Senator Franklin Drilon’s stand on political dynasties?’
This is in reaction to the Malaya editorial published on July 30, with the title “Stoking the political fire early.”
I agree with the points it raised about President Rodrigo Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (SONA). Indeed, instead of inspiring and uniting the nation, the highest official of the land just made the divisions in the country even worse by focusing on his personal issues and politics in his speech.
Is it really the people’s concern how he feels about Senator Franklin Drilon’s stand on political dynasties? Do our healthcare workers and families of COVID-19 patients care whether he is a casualty of ABS-CBN’s alleged meddling in politics?
The answer for both questions is a glaring no, but Duterte just could not resist making the event all about him again so he attacked Drilon and ABS-CBN right in the beginning of his speech. What a way to set the tone.
We were promised a detailed plan on what the government plans to do to strengthen our response and recovery efforts during this COVID-19 pandemic, but what we got were the usual empty rhetoric. At least, unlike his spokesperson, he admitted that they had lapses in responding to the pandemic.
Who would also believe he wants to protect the lives of Filipinos, when in the same speech he tells the Congress to push for death penalty, as if more dead bodies will make this country much better?
In the parts that he read verbatim, he did sound somewhat presidential. There were priority bills worth noting such as he Unified Military and Uniformed Personnel Separation, Retirement, and Pension Bill; the modernization of the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Bureau of Immigration; the passage of the National Land Use Act; and, the Nursing Education Act. However, these were overshadowed by his antics that are becoming more and more tiresome as the years go by.
Gregorio Manalastas
Novaliches, Quezon City
