PRESIDENT Arroyo’s tough defense of the expanded value-added tax (E-VAT) in her 8th State of the Nation Address is expected. The government’s varied programs on providing popular but band-aid solutions to rising fuel, power and food prices largely depends on it, thus she cannot compromise the future of the country, lest her administration which is facing a hard and uphill battle come national and local elections in 2010.

While the good news is that this fiscal policy was implemented at the time when single-digit inflation rate was recorded prior to the abnormal rise of fuel cost and the looming recession of the US economy. These have indeed helped government shore up the much needed money to finance ongoing programs and projects for the masses.

The bad news is that majority of the people can no longer afford to shell out the 12 percent VAT for basic goods and services. Even the lowly ants gather food during sunny days while taking a break when storms come. One needs not be a degree-holder of economics to know what is out there.

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In her much ballyhooed State of the Nation Address (SONA), Arroyo did not hide the fact that she has done nothing during her term as President to alleviate the problems of the country when she proclaimed: “Our country and our people have never failed to be there for us. Let us be there for them.”

Now, “Why just now?” And while admitting that the Filipino people have been very patient with her scandal-ridden term, she adds insult to injury by continuing to put the burden of VAT on the shoulders of the masses. The very same people she acknowledges to have “footed the bill”….ang nag-salba sa bayan! Arroyo should step down, not because of her dipping popularity ratings, but because she has admittedly failed to lead the nation out of its doldrums!

Jun Bauzon Odono, Wazir Akhbar Khan, Kabul, Afghanistan (via e-mail)

On July 19. 2008, Pope Benedict XVI finally apologized to the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clerics in Australia and even called for evildoers to be punished.

Apologies and forgiveness are pieces of the human condition. What the Pope did was the proper thing to do even if there is no way that the life of innumerable victims can be made fully whole again. Not even with hefty monetary compensation, on top of the apology, as that the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles agreed under duress to make to the victims of sexual abuse by catholic clerics in that diocese.

Cardinal Mahoney acknowledged that the scars could not be erased and life rewound by the $660 million payments to 508 victims of abuse and child molestation when he lamented: “Your life, I wish, were like VHS tapes.”

The Archdiocese of Boston has had 80 priests accused of child molestation in the last 50 years. The Catholic Church of America has with the Los Angeles settlement already agreed to accumulated compensation of $2 billion for sexual victimization by Catholic priests. The pattern appears to disrespect borders. While predation is clearly not a monopoly of the Catholic Church, the cases of pedophilic and hebephilic abuse seem more rampant in the Catholic Church, where celibacy for priests is mandatory.
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The report on the Pulse Asia survey on people’s perception of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) brings to mind proverbial notions of rhetoric as mere embellishment or concealment of truth, as deception.

The SONA, being a rhetorical act, has often been treated by those who oppose or are critical of the administration as a superfluous verbal activity that is far removed from reality. Manuel Martinez, in his book “A Political History of Our Times: Presidential Policies from Aquino to Ramos to Estrada,” comments that “all SONAs, regardless of which President was mouthing them, by their very nature, have suffered in many parts from banality, turgidity, superfluity and insipidity.”

While it is important to examine and understand whether the rhetoric of the SONA corresponds with the material reality experienced by Filipinos in their everyday struggle, it is also worthy to look into how rhetoric actually constitutes reality. Arguably, the SONA has been used to justify and legitimize (controversial) government policies pursued not only during the years before the annual delivery of the congressional speech but also in the years that come after.

Before the passage of the contested Human Securities Act of 2007, for instance, the president, through her SONAs, had been flagging various articulations that tend to legitimize and rally public support for the passing of the law.

She had, of course, made explicit calls for Congress to pass an anti-terrorism law in her SONAs from 2002 to 2004. But curiously her articulations also include the employment of more sophisticated rhetorical devices, such as the metaphor of “war on terror” as a curative to the “nation’s ills.” Thus we have heard her speak of the “global war on terror” as “a historical watershed” and of ensuring that criminals “of the common kind and the kind that kills in the name of political advocacies.”

Later, we realized through the Alston Report that the war on terror frame had been used to target not just these lumped criminals or “enemies of the state,” but even members of legal organizations, journalists, and human rights advocates that the military considered as fronts of the armed rebels.

Whether we listen to it delivered from the presidential podium via television, radio or the Internet or read its full text published in major dailies or on the web, the SONA – including the metaphors and frames it privileges – will find its way in other contexts and domains as it has been strategically designed to carry sound-bites ready to be embedded or alluded to in journalistic texts, news broadcasts, classroom discussions, political commentaries, and even in everyday small talks or conversations.

More importantly, the speech carries passages apportioned to be re-contextualized or reformulated into more “authoritative, non-negotiable materialities” like the Human Securities Act and other statutes.

A considerable number of people may not be aware of the SONA (the report on the recent Pulse Asia survey indicates that 40% of the respondents are not aware of the past editions of the congressional speech), and a considerable number of those who do may find it untruthful, but these facts do not erase nor reduce the truth that the SONAs like all policy speeches are implicated in our socio-political reality.

Politics, according to rhetoric scholar Bruce Gronbeck, can be understood as a symbolic action and this demands that we analyze systematically the discourses of political ideology and valuation, of political visions and the places citizens occupy in such visions; of the means by which self-interests are converted into communal interests – into public policies.

It may be, therefore, helpful for us to regard the SONA – including the spectacle that comes with it – with our critical minds. And it may do us well if we listen to it carefully, study it, write about it, and perhaps, investigate, challenge or negotiate the representations it offers us before they get reformulated by our legislators into authoritative texts and become non-negotiable.

Gene Navera, Singapore (via e-mail)

I agree that the confessed Eagle killer should be punished but I feel that he hunted out of extreme necessity and that is not a mitigating circumstance. We must be compassionate and allow him to do time for the propagation of that eagle species. At the same time, he will be able to be productive to feed his family. His acceptance of the guilt and not knowing that the bird is endangered bothers his conscience, a part of punishment. Is his crime more serious than the ones committed by some politicians stealing millions?

Arnold Salvosa, Tujunga, California (via e-mail)

In this time of crisis, it behooves us as a nation to close ranks and, in the spirit of compassion, strive to alleviate the sufferings of the worst hit of our brothers.

The government by its nature is expected to lead this endeavor and is thrashing about for ways and wherewithal to respond. There are disagreements as to the adequacy and the appropriateness of the adopted modalities and their delivery. For example, the one time 500-peso direct subsidy to Meralco lifeline users disbursed via a limited number of Landbank outlets is very inefficient and costly for its intended beneficiaries.

Other sectors, therefore, have proposed specific alternative approaches to the problem. In particular, the Catholic Bishops” Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has proposed the lifting of the VAT on oil and the review of the oil deregulation law as ways to deliver alleviation to the poor. Senator Mar Roxas has been especially scathing in his criticism of the take-and-give stratagem of the government, reading this as politically motivated. Embattled Meralco’s proposal that NAPOCOR reduce its charges and government it tax take belong to the same category. The logic is very simple: government forgoes its tax take; prices will fall or will rise, less to reflect the reduced impost; the public at large experiences some price relief. This is the suspend-for-price-relief stance.
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Statements made by Cebu Representative Eduardo Gullas that two oil companies have raked in P70 billion over the last 10 years reflect the utter ignorance or rather the brutal imbecility of politicians in this country when it comes to economic matters and the proper functioning of the price system in a free market.

Do politicians think that businesses will ever get into business without the promise of a fair return on capital. For one thing, oil companies operate on a free market basis. Unlike public utilities like Meralco, consumers have a choice in buying from any of the oil players large or small. Consumers can actually by-pass oil companies by forming cooperatives and importing petroleum products themselves.

But why don’t you think this is happening? The answer is pretty obvious — the risk on capital, Mr. Congressman. The oil business is a very risky business. Imagine if you stocked up on oil last week and the price dropped (as it did) by $10. Not to mention the risk of shipping oil from overseas in these huge tankers, storing them in depots and moving them to the gas stations.

Are you aware of how much pilfering happens in the distribution system? Please realize that if we did not have free enterprise to facilitate that process, we would not have oil products available to us at reasonable prices; yes, even at P60, petroleum prices are reasonable.

Have you ever heard of scarce resources, Mr. Congressman? Of course, there is no scarcity of politicians running for office. If you ask me, I would rather live with petroleum prices at this level because I have a choice of using my cars or taking public transport or even walking (which, by the way, I have been doing to save money).

However, when I look at the prices the citizens of this country has to pay for maintaining congressmen and senators and all politician for that matter, I can see the real place where the Filipino people is really being ripped off. And it is not at the gas pump.

Gus Cosio, Quezon City (via e-mail)

Not a few of us doubt that the former Speaker has plenty of beans to spill. But we likewise doubt his willingness or courage to face the consequences of surfacing in the Senate as witness against the President. I think it would be more self benefiting for him to paint a pragmatic excuse to stay in safe waters far from pressures that may be worse than those that Jun Lozada went through.

A wise politician and businessman formerly allied with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would be better off playing ball with Malacanang’s occupants than turning against them, because the process could be ugly and painful in the immediate and long term. However, if, as the congressman says, his revelations may “bring down the presidency” because of the enormity of evidence he can show, then let it be so — if that would be finally good for the country.

De Venecia would be a credible witness considering his affiliations and affinity to those who were and are in power. But if in his heart De Venecia discerns that he is only motivated by vengeance and his subconscious desire to wrest back his great political powers, then I think he should take back his words humbly and sink into a peaceful state of ignonimity.

On the other hand, if he truthfully believes that he has what would make this country take the path of moral revival and recover from its sinful and corrupt governance (as is seemingly the commonly accepted impression or nationwide belief) then, unfortunately for him or not, the moral responsibility rests on his shoulders to cooperate with the Senate and give all that he has to give in an objective, fair, and just volume of information.

De Venecia’s situation is like that of an officer in Mel Gibson’s “We Were Soldiers” — he called in a “Broken Arrow” condition and had bombs dropped a few meters from his own lines, placing even his own self at risk of getting napalmed but in the end saving the battalion from certain annihilation.

Such is the call that would need courage and true patriotism. because the officer believed he was fighting for a good cause. Now, for De Venecia, he would have to ask himself if he has the same kind of cause. If not, then the Senate better forget his appearance and submit its report “finished or not finished.”

Victor Manalac, Taytay, Rizal (via e-mail)

Mr. Montelibano, your article in today’s Inquirer put this country’s history and forward direction into perspective, and may I add a brief reply to it.

What expert would have predicted a year ago that the world would be going through such a wringer experience, brought on by the double whammy of food and fuel? Certainly the “First World” (and “Second” like Canada and Australia) had no inkling, and although Australia has had a long acquaintance with drought, it was manageable as long as inflation was. But certainly it’s in countries like Philippines where the worst of the brunt is being felt right now.

It seems that it’s noticeable even here in Cagayan de Oro, with traffic thinning and the air clearing occasionally.

The only true riches this nation has are its people and the faith they have in their own future. Sweden was in a similar position in the late ’50s, yet they somehow re-invented themselves successfully.

Wasn’t it Thomas Paine who said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” We are being tested as never before in our past, and we owe it to our future ancestors to get it right, to invest in our own future, and not just everyone else’s.

Paul Komarnicki, Kauswagan, Cagayan de Oro City (via e-mail)

I find it painfully hypocritical that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) would suggest not giving communion to members of the church simply because of their stance on family planning. What about other members guilty of other “sins?” What about the politicos who steal from the people and still have the gall to show their faces at church every Sunday? That’s been going on for decades, and yet they pick this as a reason to kick somebody out? Why not also refuse to give communion to Gloria’s entourage who flew overseas just to watch Pacquiao’s bout, even as we were still reeling from Typhoon Frank’s aftermath?

Talk about double standards. While I don’t agree with Gabriela on many matters, I will side with their point that abortion happens simply because many women here have neither the financial nor the emotional means to care for their child. There are probably more reasons, but given our level of poverty, this is the most likely cause. If the church is so against abortion, then why don’t they care for the unwanted child? Or would they rather he or she grow in “a situation of sin,” where starvation and neglect will push them to resort to drastic actions just to stay alive?

I am angered especially because I am also a practicing Catholic. Since when did we end up with leaders with this backward thinking. Family planning does not equal anti-life. If anything, it ensures that the couple will have the means to properly care for their offspring.

As for the argument that sex education would lead to immoral acts, this flow of logic implies that reading about lock picking will also encourage us to commit thefts, or that reading about serial killers will turn us into murderers. Except that this doesn’t happen normally, unless the one reading is already mentally disturbed. This only reveals that the CBCP is selling their pulpit’s common sense and integrity short. We are smarter than that, and we certainly deserve better leaders than that.

-Antonio Yang III, Sta. Mesa, Metro Manila (via e-mail)