ANTI-Marcos
netizens cheered the only surviving Senate candidate in the opposition line-up
as she stood there, refusing to applaud as President Ferdinand R. Marcos
Jr. was introduced to deliver his first State of the Nation Address
(SONA). Sen. Ana Theresia "Risa" Hontiveros is
entitled to that, but still, the image spoke about her lack of professionalism,
only amplified by the accolades her anti-Marcos base heaped on her. However,
while she did not clap while the President was being introduced, she actually
lauded some of the President's measures, such as renewable energy and social
support for vulnerable sectors like solo parents. This is a fact that will not
sink in the bitter minds of those who cannot move on from their electoral loss.
Senator
Hontiveros found the SONA of the President as lacking in terms of addressing
corruption. This was echoed by many in the anti-Marcos camp, including some of
my colleagues in academe. I am not sure what kind of measure they are looking
for since it wouldn't definitely be in support of imposing capital punishment
for corrupt officials. But certainly, a more structural-minded and analytical
person, which I was expecting academics to be, would have known that corruption
is both rooted and embodied in organizational structures and processes. I
cannot understand why they failed to appreciate that rightsizing the
bureaucracy, cleaning up and rationalizing the system of taxation, and
promoting the digitalization of government operations would address the issue.
This
is actually one of the problems of the political opposition. It is expressed in
terms of their inconsistency. During the campaign, they kept on hammering then
candidate Marcos for not showing any specifics and focusing instead on
generalized platitudes and symbolic messages. They were looking for detail. And
now that Marcos, now the elected president, delivered a SONA full of specifics,
zeroing on the gut issues that are relevant to people, they attack him for not
touching on symbolic issues and concerns.
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| (photo credit to owner) |
I
read some people even faulting him for not saying anything about historical
revisionism, without reflecting on the implications of a state, no less than
the President, coming up with a policy statement that would in effect intrude
into the academic freedom of scholars. It really begs the question of how a
policy on historical revisionism can be stated in a SONA without infringing on
the constitutional guarantee of academic freedom. It defies logic that people
who are fiercely protective of their freedoms would expect the state to come up
with a policy pronouncement about one issue that they would argue is best left
for scholars to settle.
Besides,
it is fairly obvious that while the issue of historical revisionism populated
social media chatter for it to even be at the top of the internet metrics, the
real voices from the people, those that were measured not by Google Trends
which was proven to be woefully unscientific in capturing people sentiments,
but by scientific surveys, pointed to the primacy of economic issues as the
main concerns of people. Historical revisionism did not figure prominently in
the top issues identified by these surveys.
President
Marcos' SONA was also lambasted for not touching on human rights. Again, the
political opposition was perhaps expecting the President to express human
rights in the context of parenthood platitudes, or if not, a specific statement
about considering releasing jailed former senator Leila de Lima. They took note of the silence of his speech on
these, yet they missed ruminating on the silence of the President on the issue
of the war on drugs, something which took center stage during the term of his
predecessor. Perhaps, they wanted the President to openly evince what was
typical of some presidents before him, which is to take on a discourse of
fault-finding and of vengefulness aimed at his predecessor.
It
is in having this demeanor that they easily ignored that many salient points
the President raised are actually deeply steeped in and are essentially about
human rights. He vowed to protect the rights of our migrant workers, our
landless farmers and other vulnerable sectors. And he did this not just with
empty generalizations, but with concrete proposals such as actual reforms in
processes for migrant workers and a more systematic repatriation system when
they are distressed, a moratorium on loan payments of agrarian reform
beneficiaries, and things which even Senator Hontiveros supports such as social
support systems for solo parents and other vulnerable sectors. The President
spoke not in abstractions about respecting human rights as a symbolic ideal,
but concretely embodied in the vision of a people free from the hazards of
climate change, energy insecurity and from lack of access to specialty health
care, to enjoy life at its fullest. The President focused on disaster
resilience and climate adaptation, renewable energy and in building regional
specialty hospitals.
But
the bitterness of an electoral defeat remains a bane that consumes the critics
of the President. They want him to toe their usual ways. They wanted him to
dwell on highly divisive and toxic platitudes that may not resonate with the
people who expect him to lead the country as we move forward. They want him to
keep on going back to the past, contrary to the mandate that he obtained from
the people. They would be happy to see the President issue statements that
would sit well with them, but divide the country. In fact, they would have been
happier if he had boldly contradicted, even vowed to prosecute, his predecessor
for his alleged human rights violations. But we all know this is a trap.
Nothing can prevent them from looking for other holes, flaws and deficiencies.
Quoted fully from Daily Tribune’s Opinion
By Antonio Contreras
July 28, 2022
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