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One nation 31 July 2008 |
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ADDRESSING herself to
Congress and the Judiciary, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in
her State of the Nation Address (SoNA) last Monday: "We are three
branches but one government. We have our disagreements; we each have
hopes, and ambitions that drive and divide us, be they personal, ethnic,
religious and cultural. But we are one nation with one fate." Actually, the President may as well have addressed that to the rest of the 88 million Filipinos. We must face, as one nation, the global food and fuel turmoil that has up-ended the world economy, the "terrible tsunami" sweeping across borders. The 2008 SoNA, with wellearned pride, showed what had been done the past year, in all the major fronts -- fiscal reforms, employment and the economy, education and entrepreneurship, infrastructure, energy, governance and transparency, social and health services, information and communications, etc. It was a litany of accomplishments and successes, highlighted by the over 7% GDP growth last year. The immediate response to the global crisis was also set out: "First, we must have a targeted strategy with a set of precise prescriptions to ease the price challenges we are facing. Second, food self-sufficiency; less energy dependence; greater self-reliance in our attitude as a people and in our posture as a nation. Third, short-term relief cannot be at the expense of long term reforms. These reforms will benefit not just the next generation of Filipinos, but the next President as well." "Special care and attention," the President said, are reserved for the most vulnerable among us -- those who have nothing to protect themselves from the global crisis. Showing true grit and a firm grip on leadership, especially the kind undaunted by hard decisions, the President neither blinked nor flinched on the Value Added Tax issue. "We have come too far and made too many sacrifices to turn back now on fiscal reforms," she said. "The government," she added, "has persevered, without flip-flops, in its much-criticized but irreplaceable policies, including oil and power VAT and oil deregulation." The SoNA was interrupted by over 100 rounds of applause, from 102 to 108, over 55 to 57 minutes, depending on whose count you cite. Text rollback, attesting to texting’s place as our way of life, received resounding applause. The Katas ng VAT programs, as they were ticked off, were also roundly applauded. But the applause reserved for the President’s call to all as one nation with one fate, was particularly heartwarming and inspiring. Surely, we can still be one nation under a common vision and in our shared aspirations. |
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