[OPINION] SONA 2024: Political optics and acoustics
It would have been an otherwise boring speech, but President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. surprised the public watching him deliver his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) when he tackled two primary issues topping the headlines the past many, many months: WPS and POGO.
It was a masterstroke in political optics and acoustics: The members and guests at the joint session of the 19th Congress gave him warm applause and standing ovations, and his most powerful lines were even delivered in the vernacular.
“Ang West Philippine Sea ay hindi isang kathang-isip natin lamang,” the President said in his speech that took about an hour and 20 minutes.
“Ito ay atin. At ito ay mananatiling atin, hangga’t nag-aalab ang diwa ng ating mahal na bansang Pilipinas.
Pagtitibayin at palalaguin natin ang kamalayan at kaalaman ng buong bansa, at titiyaking mai-papasa natin ito sa ating kabataan at ating susunod na mga salinlahi.”
His audience roared in joy, chanting B-B-EM, B-B-EM, rivaling the same high spirits that filled the same plenary hall two years ago when he was proclaimed the country’s 17th President. Marcos felt that towering feeling anew.
It was not to be the last.
The President soon defined for the first time a categorical stand on POGO, that problematic gambling originating in China that conquered, well almost, the entire Philippines.
“At ngayon po, naririnig po namin ang malakas na sigaw ng taumbayan laban sa mga POGO,” the President said.
“Disguising as legitimate entities, their operations have ventured into illicit areas furthest from gaming, such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder. The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop.”
This ought to stop, the President said, in no uncertain terms.
“Kailangan nang itigil ang panggugulo nito sa ating lipunan at paglapastangan sa ating bansa.
Effective today, all POGOs are banned.”
It was loud and clear. The audience returned the favor immediately. They stood up anew and gave him thunderous applause, a longer and more resounding one this time.
It was like a magic wand came upon the President turning the hall into a whole new world. Not unlike America's Got Talent judges led by Simon Cowell giving the President four yeses, with instantly falling confetti. Nothing could have been sweeter.
But the problem with SONAs is that it is not a one-act show. SONA has its beginnings and endings, it has planning with the end in view, far more complicated than a singing audition.
Marcos opened his speech by tackling the price of rice against the growing Philippine economy, which, in his own words, is among the best-performing economies in the world.
But he qualified it. “Bagamat maganda ang mga istatistikang ito, wala itong kabuluhan sa ating kababayan na hinaharap ang realidad na mataas ang presyo ng mga bilihin, lalo na ng pagkain—lalo’t higit, ng bigas.
(It) means nothing to a Filipino, who is confronted by the price of rice at 45 to 65 pesos per kilo.”
For indeed, assuming the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been improving, as government officials say, the GDP does not illustrate the distribution of income. It does not show that the poor are getting poorer; all these complaints about inflation do.
Why can’t the President just admit that reducing the price of a kilo of rice was impossible to achieve, an economist interviewed on TV said early Monday morning. Because, indeed, the production cost of rice would not allow it.
The President’s State of the Nation Address is one of the very few speeches delivered in Congress that is not subjected to any interpellation. The Opposition may opt to deliver its own State of the Nation the next day, but it is never given the privilege of putting the President to check his facts, face-to-face, and make himself accountable.
He regaled his audience with promises and more promises, like in his first and second SONA, of government efforts to reduce the prices of basic commodities, to provide employment, basic education, and ad nauseam. Let the Opposition, the economists, and data analytics reconcile the speeches, promising vs. accomplished.
The issues on POGO—ranging, as he said, from financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder—have been raging the past many, many months, Mr. President.
The senators have been waiting for that presidential ban long, long ago. What took you so long to decide? Where have you been? What took the President so long for the optics?
The WPS is ours, the President said, and as his Coast Guard and military officials have been saying, we would not allow China to get an inch.
So many have been talking about war, but the Palace was not even telling the people what to do. The people were at a loss. That we would now defend it is a new battle cry. How? What took the President so long that he and only as the President and commander-in-chief can rally the troops and the people? Still, beyond the rhetoric, the President never talked about the details of getting ready to defend Philippine territory. Talk of political acoustics.
“So, ladies and gentlemen, let me end by recalling the words of a great man: Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest allows wrong to be committed in his name,” he said.
It was the President’s third SONA. The euphoria of his victory, of a Marcos’s return to the Palace, in the first and second, ought to stop. The public seemed forgiving for it was in the time of President Marcos that they were totally freed of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions. Into his fourth SONA, it is time to work. Enough of rhetoric. The people need results.
Enough of political optics and acoustics.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of PhilSTAR L!fe, its parent company and affiliates, or its staff.
