PGMA's SUCCESSFUL "STATE OF THE NATION'S ADDRESS"

by pinkberry143 | July 28, 2008 at 03:29 am

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PHILIPPINES:

The Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has delivered successfully her SONA " State of the Nation's Address" elaborating her future plans and successful operations over the last few years of her stay as the President of the Philippines..

SOURCE: ABS CBN NEWS

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To the many Filipinos, it was likely overwhelming to hear the Pres. GMA announced her concerns to the ORDINARY PEOPLE and sited many of the poor families who recieved a pompous support from the Govt under her regime. Though many have suffered or are suffering from the world crisis, many have also benifited...

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ABS CBN NEWS

The global crisis on rising fuel and food prices colored the eighth State of the Nation Address on Monday as President Arroyo focused on government efforts to help Filipinos cope with high inflation rates despite the retention of the controversial value-added tax (VAT) on oil products.

In a speech that lasted a little over an hour, Arroyo said the government will focus on food self-sufficiency, less energy dependence and greater self-reliance as a strategy to counter the effects of the global crisis on rising fuel and food prices.

Arroyo defended her policy not to lower or remove the VAT on oil products as demanded by key legislators and militant groups. She said the sales consumption tax was an important weapon since it “shores up our fiscal independence,” funds the infrastructure needs of the country as well as programs for the masses.

“Take VAT away and you and I abdicate our responsibility as leaders. We shall pull the rug from under our present and future progress, which may be compromised by the global crisis,” she said at the joint session of Congress Monday.

“If we remove the VAT, business confidence will decline, interest rates will go up, the more the value of the peso will fall, and the more commodity prices will rise. If we remove the VAT on oil and electricity, we will lose P80 billion for the poor. It will strip the majority of our people of the means to ride out the world food and energy crisis,” she said.

As a result of her government’s decision to raise and keep the VAT, she said the peso appreciated from P56.50 to the dollar to P40.20, but fell to P44 after world oil and food prices shot up.

Arroyo said removing VAT on oil would mean losing billions of pesos that could be spend on pro-poor programs that include one-time cash gifts to smaller power consumers, food-for-school subsidies and college scholarships and subsidies for conversion of diesel-run jeepneys to LPG, CNG or biofuel.

She added that future VAT collections would be used to fund more subsidy programs while investing in long-term solutions to address the problem of high fuel prices and food self-sufficiency. She said among the programs funded by VAT include an irrigation component of the San Roque Dam Project, more LandBank loans for farmer and fisherfolk and subsidized rice procured by the National Food Authority.

Extend CARP

Arroyo urged Congress to extend the 20-year Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law before the end of 2008, saying it was a legacy of her father that she wanted to finish.

"My father started land reform in 1963. In order to complete this, the extension of Comprehensive Agrarian Reforms Program (CARP) with reforms is a top priority. I will continue to do all I can for the rural and urban poor," Arroyo said.

"Be with me on this. There must be a path where justice and progress converge. Let us find it before Christmas," she said.

Leaders of the Catholic Church have urged Arroyo and Congress to pass a CARP with reforms bill.

The CARP lapsed in June 2008. Congress failed to extend it, but the House of Representatives passed a resolution before going on recess expressing the lower house's legal position that CARP expires at the end of 2008.

Arroyo said the agrarian reform program should be reformed to eliminate corruption and other threats to the program.

"I want the rackets out of agrarian reform: the threats to take and undervalue land, the conspiracies to overvalue it. We must curb the recklessness that bites off more than beneficiaires can chew by giving land without the means to make it productive," Arroyo said.

She also said tenancy and usury should be eliminated, asking that former tenants should be "empowered to become agribusinessmen by allowing their land to be used as collateral for loans in the formal banking system."

Stricter anti-graft law

Aside from the agrarian reform law, the President also urged Congress to lift the 10 percent cap on SSS housing loans and pass a Consumer Bill of Rights against price gouging, false advertising and other marketing malpractices.

She also urged Congress to pass a more stringent anti-graft law to aid her administration’s efforts to fight corruption.

In her SONA, President Arroyo praised the Office of the Ombudsman for increasing its conviction rate by 500 percent, which led to the dismissal and criminal prosecution of dozens of corrupt government officials.

She said the government allocated more than P3 billion to boost the gathering and filing of hard evidence against alleged corrupt officials.

She said more advanced corruption practices require a similarly advanced response from the legislative branch. "Colleagues in Congress, we need a more stringent Anti-Graft Act,” she said.

Under Republic Act No. 319 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, any public official found guilty of receiving bribes or kickbacks or of using his position to enter into a contract that would directly benefit himself or a relative would be penalized with a prison sentence and a hefty fine. A separate law, Republic Act 7080 or the Plunder Law of 1991, imposes a life sentence to government officials who use their position to steal at least P75 million from public coffers.

Mindanao solution

The President also touched on the link between insurgency and poverty in Mindanao. Arroyo said the sad irony of Mindanao is that as food basket of the country, it also has some of the higher hunger incidence in the nation and six of the poorest provinces.

"The prime reason is the endless Mindanao conflict. Don't get me wrong. The peace and order situation has significantly improved and along with it economic progress. I am exerting all efforts to forge a just and lasting peace consistent with my Constitutional powers and functions," she said.

"The demands of decency and compassion urge dialogue. Better talk than fight, if nothing of sovereign value is anyway lost. Dialogue has achieved more than confrontation in many parts of the world."

The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front earlier agreed to ballot areas within 12 months on whether they wanted to join the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The existing Muslim homeland has its own government, legislature and Muslim courts, but remains dependent on the central government for its budget, foreign, defence and monetary policy.

In the final political agreement still under negotiation, the rebels are pushing for the homeland to retain 75 percent of the taxes raised in that region.

Last week, President Arroyo supported postponing the August 11 ARMM elections because progress in talks with the 11,000-member MILF made a new political setup a possibility.

A focus on the common people

Unlike her previous SONAs, Arroyo steered clear of praising allies and high-profile personalities but instead focused on unknowns to exemplify the plight of the common Filipinos who benefited from various government programs.

Several of the persons mentioned in her speech were jeepney driver Federico Alvarez who upped his daily take from P200 to P500 following a government campaign against colorum vehicles; Edwin Bandila of North Cotabato who upped the yield of his farm due to a government irrigation project; farmers Victoria Mindoro and Pedro and Concordia Faviolas who received land through government agri-forestry projects and Bugkalot chieftain Rosario Camma who helped 15,000 tribesmen develop crops in a town in Quirino province.

She also cited several gains and expenditures made by her government including:

- a cut in text messaging cost from P1 to P0.50
- 65 million Filipinos given health insurance, including 15 million poor
- P3 billion anti-graft fund
- tax relief for workers earning P200,000 yearly or less
- quadrupled Landbank loans to farmers and fishermen
- 39 roll-on, roll-off (RORO) ports built since 2001
- 20,000 jobs to out-of-school youths
- P102 billion in microfinance loans
- P22.6 billion in Pag-IBIG housing loans in 2007
- P2 billion allocation for reforestation
- P1.5 billion allocation for clean water in 2009
- 21 sanitary landfills built since 2001

She also gave her final word on her population policy by siding with the Catholic Church amid calls by family planning advocates that the government support artificial family planning. "Informed choice should mean letting more couples, who are mostly Catholics, know about natural family planning," she said.

In the end, she called on the three branches of government to unite and be responsive to the people's needs.

"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. As your President, I care too much about this nation to let anyone stand in the way of our people's wellbeing. I will let no one – and no one's political plans – threaten our nation's survival," she said.

"Our country and our people have never failed to be there for us. We must be there for them now."