SOME Filipino bloggers did not mince words, as they blogged about the recent St
ate of the Nation Address of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Former journalist Anton DeLeon's
Slap Happy was not very happy about Arroyo's speech. He writ
es:
Things are not definitely getting better. Seriously, if things were
booming and zooming and talk of all this economic activity was real then i wou
ldn't be holed up here in Dubai, of all places, if the prospects of all economi
c progress are pointing to the Philippines.
DeLeon is currently working in Dubai as a media executive. He continues:
Noted as one of the least applauded speeches of Arroyo, the stateme
nt of a "President being as strong as she wants to be" did not appeal to my fan
cy. I actually found it uh...droll.
However, i do agree with the proposals for the anti-terrorism law, which i thin
k should be neatly put in place and all that needs to be done should be done.
And to summarize what i thought of during the hour long speech; i was looking f
orward to hearing something different--specifics-- and not the usual vision, mi
ssion, expectations we get every SONA. I am just too tired of it.
Coming from someone who just left the government for better things elsewhere,
i am really just too tired of it.
Fellow journalist and blogger Manuel Quezon III
cited Pinoy bloggers who made interesting comments
about the Sona.
Quezon found Philippine Science High School teacher Martin Perez'
blog entry at Akomismo noteworthy.
Perez writes:
Last year, the President debuted the ambitious âSuper Regionsâ infr
astructure framework. This year she takes it ten steps further by bannering a n
ew ideal â that we become a first world country in 20 years. And in her speech
today, she outlines how she plans to contribute to that vision in her last thre
e years.
While I canât comment fully on the speech yet due to obvious reasons, I also wo
uldnât want to say how unrealistic her vision is. Everyone deserves the chance
to dream. However, I would like to raise an important point made by the Inquirerâs editorial today â that our country n
eeds a leader, not a manager. We donât need just a checklist of accomplishments
and goals; we need a direction, a vision and a dream. PGMA may dream all she w
ill, but to get our people sold on that dream is another matter. Having our peo
ple believe in her and work with her on this requires the talents and charisma
of a leader that this manager of a President has yet to or may never even beco
me. How she attempts to do this in the SONA will be one thing Iâm looking out f
or.
Quezon then went on to link to an exercise Perez conducted in his class. He lat
er posted the result in an entry, titled "
What
my students taught me about the Sona."
Tingog.com lists
10 key highlights in the Sona. One h
ighlight says:
The last part of her speech was full of hidden clues, agendas, and
wink wink type of sentences. She said, âThey say the campaign for the next elec
tion started on May 15, the day after the last. Fine. I stand in the way of no
oneâs ambition. I only ask that no one stand in the way of the peopleâs well be
ing and the nationâs progress. The time for facing off is over. The time is her
e for facing forward to a better future our people so desperately want and rich
ly deserve. Uulitin ko: Hindi ako sagabal sa ambisyon ninuman. But make no mist
ake. I will not stand idly when anyone gets in the way of the national interest
and tries to block the national vision. From where I sit, I can tell you, a Pr
esident is always as strong as she wants to be.â
From the Bayanihan Blog Network, Sasha adds:
I get the feeling that the SONA here in the Philippines is much mor
e closely watched by its citizens than in other countries. Thatâs because for b
oth the administration and oppositionâand their supportersâPresident Gloria Mac
apagal-Arroyoâs annual speech determines the points and issues to argue over. W
hich usually boils down to question of whether the Philippines has improved und
er her direction.
What struck me, however, was the observation made by
Quezon. He says,
Body language says a lot. The President looked tired and drawn when
she arrived at the Batasan; keeping control of things that day obviously wasn
ât easy. Compared to last yearâs triumphalist, even gleeful, delivery, she seem
ed to falter and stumble over the words a lot. And despite name-dropping like c
razy, she garnered less applause than last year: and it was the loyal NBN peopl
e who did the counting, mind you.
