I was expecting to see a president comforting a nation which has been pummelled by insurgency and an unfinished war in the South; a president who will lay down to the public his economic blueprint in accord with his announced theme, “A Comfortable Life for All”.
Instead, I saw a blubbering, angry old man giving a winding, mindless talk loaded with expletives as if it were the only language he knows. And he even ups his vulgarity ante by using maglulo, a Visayan term for masturbation, to his already profanity-laden speech.
Never in the history of the Philippines has the august hall of Congress been made a pulpit to foment hatred and crudity before the general public, the diplomatic community and the rest of the world as his audience.
He lashed out at dissenters, and labeled the opposition, the media, the public and those he perceives to be critical of his administration as enemies of the state.
What is more appalling is the sight of House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez (a perfect caricature of a jester) and the rest of his Congress gofers gleefully cheering on the President, much like juveniles jerking off on the President’s every curse and obscene joke.
The President made a lot of fuss about the Balangiga Bells, three church bells taken by the US Army from the town church of Balangiga, Eastern Samar, in the Philippines as war trophies. He angrily demanded that Americans turn over the bells, while conveniently glossing over the brazen encroachment of China into our territories in the West Philippine Sea.
“It’s akin to a bad open-mic performance,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel of the minority bloc says. “Same old material. Bloody war on drugs, martial law, death penalty and wanton disregard for democracy and human rights…All sound and fury, lacking in achievements for the bold promises he made.”
His ally, Sen. Richard J. Gordon, was expecting the President to discuss plans for the rehabilitation of the conflict-torn Marawi City: “There were mixed signals there. We’re not going to attack. Just die on the vine.”
The President also openly threatened Sen. Juan Edgardo M. Angara to pass the tax-reform bill or face penalty of losing in the next election. The senator is up for reelection. Any senator worth his salt would think otherwise. If they thoughtlessly support the tax-reform measures, there is a high probability that the public will find it unpalatable.
The fate of Sen. Ralph G. Recto, who buoyed the tax measures of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and lost reelection, is still too fresh to be forgotten.
Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito also says Duterte lacks plans for infrastructure and economic strategy. His marching order for Congress to effect the swift passage of the tax-reform bill to bankroll economic activity also needs to be thoroughly studied.
“I have apprehensions on the proposed comprehensive tax reform in its present form,” he says, adding: “Definitely, I will not be voting in favor of the comprehensive tax measures in its present form.”
Duterte did not let his monologue pass without hitting detained Sen. Leila M. de Lima whom he called, in not in so many words, a woman of ill-repute.
But the feisty senator retorts: “Let me return the favor and ask Duterte the same questions. Do you think you even have the moral values and credible standing, after that garbage of a speech you have unloaded before us and the foreign diplomatic corps?”
Businessmen see that things they consider most urgent came last in Duterte’s priorities.
“If you condense the message in the economic side of the speech, it is still adhering to the policies that were set during the “Sulong Pilipinas” last year, wherein Duterte relayed the 10-point socioeconomic agenda,” says George Barcelon, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who believes that the speech is wanting especially in agriculture. He also believes that Duterte should have provided a timeline for the improvement of the information and communication technology in the country, which was constantly hounded by problems caused by slow Internet.
For John Forbes, senior adviser to the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines: “It was a very forceful speech in which the President took a very strong stance on his policy concerns, including drugs and rebellion. However, it was not, as predicted by his spokesman, much about a ‘comfortable life for all’. We would like to have heard about his top legislative priorities and reforms to create more jobs, more details about ‘Build, Build, Build,’ and more priority measures than those he had already mentioned.”
Has change really come? I’m reminded of a 1984 burger commercial “Fluffy Bun”, in which actress Clara Peller upon receiving her order of a burger with a massive bun, exclaimed: “Where’s the beef?” when she finds out that it contains a tiny patty. That, in essence, is the true state of our nation.
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