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Critique on President Aquinos 1
st
State of the Nation Address
The whole of P-Noys SONA was promising. For one the scorching state issues were
presented without mercy and the handful of expos was according to expectations.
However in the view of P-Noys handling of the fiscal issues that he presented during
his SONA, there are more problems stated than solutions given.
Simple mathematics will give us a staggering figure of almost 1% left for the 2010
budget per month. This is not the incumbent presidents fault nor is it the sole fault of
the former president. It is the fault of the ex-President Arroyo, her cohorts and the
people themselves who tolerate this kind of political system. Corruption ran rampart
over our country for decades not only because of the politicians who perpetuate this
crimes but also because of the common people who are not acting against this
injustice. To think that the people who are grumbling, whining and protesting against
this perversion are the ones who are following the old-age politicks; lagay, kotong,
under-the-table, nepotism and all that goes after that. And what will this people do with
1% remaining budget in a month, these politicians who are depending on their pork
barrels will give a more severe politicking.
On the issue of the Calamity Fund being given after the calamity, just like what
happened in Pampanga where the Calamity Fund was given years after Ondoy and
Pepeng and the big coincidence is that it was given during campaign period. What kind
of administration waits for years before providing money for natural disasters? What
kind of officials approves and instigates giving more than half of the fund to a single
district while another stands in want of funds? As the authorities among that province
and among our country, those funds which is probably insufficient, considering the
amount of typhoons and hurricanes the Philippines per annum, should have been kept
in a tight budget but should flow to all those in need during calamities. Funds should be
used for their specific purpose not for the funding of campaigns.
Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewarage System has a very high-paying Board of
Trustees. Indeed, this quasi-public institution that should be providing water for the
people of Manila has been paying their BoT 98,000 pesos per month, with additional
bonuses and incentives that will lead up to 2, 500,000 pesos per year not including the
company car, technical assistance and money lending. The money given to the Board of
Trustees should not have been any problem if, and only if the services that they will
provide will not be affected subsequently worsening the service quality due to lack of
funds. In short, those BoT can have all the money they want, provided the people can
have their water on their faucets. But how can we agree with this amounts in the BoTs
huge private pockets while the people suffer with less and less water being provided.
They fill their own troves with money from the people they do not even serve properly
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and even their own retirees are not paid their due pensions. How could we ignore that
kind of insult?
P-Noy spoke about a fund about infrastractures that involves 246 priority safety
projects that will be provided by the Motor Vehicle Users Charge. Now these projects
are the top priority, planned and studied to have a budget of 425 million. How come
that only 28 projects were the only ones to be funded? What happened to the other 218
projects? Ill tell you, what happened to them is that they were replaced by 70 projects
that were not on the original plan. To make it worse, these mere 70 projects increased
the budget to 480 million! To think that these are worthless, useless, unstudied,
unprepared projects, that have surfaced like mushrooms according to Aquino. What is
really important to these seventy projects that will make the necessary budget increase
is that there were a few chosen ones that are beneficiaries of the said funds. These
individuals wanted to gain more money for their own greedy selves so they decided to
use this Priority Safety Funds, they manipulated it to suit their own needs and not the
proper needs and functions of the said fund. This is one great problem among the
Philippines from the past, in the present and I certainly hope not in the future. This
problem is due to great intelligence natural to a Pilipino, makes possible the creation of
excellent policies but the great greed unnatural but common to a Pilipino makes the
violation and restriction of these policies to their own selfish advantages.
Why, I ask patiently, why did the past administration has to release 3.5 billion- billion!
for rehabilitation of the damages by the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng 5 days before
the end of their term! It looks and is certainly is a desperate move for those in position
to squeeze out all the money they can before they are ousted from their positions. It
was the fear that their endangered positions in the government will be snatched away
from them, therefore, to pay for all their good work they released copious amount of
money in the name of Ondoy and Pepeng, all the while the money are traveling from
the government bank to their own pockets. Have they no shame at all, to the people of
the Philippines, to their fellow colleages, and to the world?
Fortunately for us, Sec. Rogelio Singson of the DPWH discovered and prevented this
horrendous event. This 3.5 billion would have been used for 89 projects that will not
passed through public bidding. Without public bidding all of them would have been
approved indiscriminately. What expense we would have incurred when only 19 of this
projects would have amounted to 981 million pesos! In what we call a carte blanch like
phenomenon; the contracts were already signed when the Special Allotment Release
Order was not even released yet. Would it take a million of Sec. Rogelio Singson for our
government to have a clean and honest project budgeting? I do hope not. I was
thinking, when all of Ondoy and Pepengs damages were fresh and funds were
necessary, where was this 89 projects worth 3.5 billion? Does it have to take years to
formulate fiscal policies necessary for calamities like this? If it does, then the
government has a number of incompetent employees. Either train them again so they
can execute their jobs properly or they should be replaced by more qualified persons.
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The debt incurred by NAPOCOR had been the slip-up of the previous administration.
They persuaded NAPOCOR not to raise their price, perhaps in preparation for the
election. The grand result: bankruptcy. The government was forced to shoulder the 200
billion peso debt of NAPOCOR. It reflects badly to the government and to NAPOCOR.
People innocently thought that their financial worries were lessened due to the constant
low electricity price, but they were wrong. Aside from paying NAPOCOR, the people are
also paying the NAPOCOR debt from the taxes that should have been for other
beneficial governmental services. Yes, the public had a positive response to the
government for their power over NAPOCOR, providing un-raised electric bill. However
the consequence must be faced by us all, we were cheated. The financial worries
increased because of that false move of the government thirsty for reelection. It is
pitiful that most people do not and cannot see it that way; for them, low electric bill is
good and high electric bill is bad. This people think only of the now, their money and
their bills, while the correct and more efficient way of thinking is the now and the
future, long-term effects and solutions to problems.
There was only this ifif the money borrowing had been seriously applied in the correct
ways, there would have been no need for us to suffer more expenditures. But, as weak
as we are, these decisions were based not based on the peoples needs but was based
on dirty politics. Now, this is what we get, additional sacrifices and enduring just to pay
for this should not be debt of the government. Always, the government is in debt and
always, the people are not the beneficiaries and yet they are the ones paying. What is
this some kind of a joke democracy? The government by the people, for the
government and to the government, is that the democracy in the Philippines? No
wonder we have thousands of OFW. Well, before that is, I have just read a survey that
says lesser people wants to work overseas during P-Noys Administration. So loyal for
our fellow citizen but I hope Kris Aquina would be loyal to her own words and go out of
the country as she had said before. Or at least stop stirring up scandals and ending in
newspaper entertainment sections full of faux pas. I am dreading Kris influence,
directly and indirectly upon her President brothers Administration. Would Kris be the
second Imelda Marcos?
Who would in their right minds, buy 900,000 to fill only a 117,000 metric tons of rice?
Or a 1.827 million for a 589,000 metric tons of rice? Then all of unused rice will rot and
be thrown away. Who would do that while there are millions of Pilipino who cant even
eat a decent three meals a day?
Only NFA and our beloved government can do that.
And the figure given by P-Noy was 4 million people, just to be precise. So those 4
million people if they were had received the spare rice, wouldnt it be more useful,
instead of throwing it all away? And who was it that approved that kind of spending of
funds?
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The amount spent on those wasted rice, the debt of NFA that has reached 17.6 billion
could have been enough to fund more purposeful projects of the Aquinos
administration. Like Hudikutura budget of 12.7 billion pesos, Conditional Cash
Transfers of 29.6 billion and all of the countrys classroom which needs 130 billion
pesos.
P-Noy gave clear solutions to this fiscal problem of budgeting. Provide projects with the
right target problems and the right solutions. To satisfy the want of money or the
insufficiency of our funds, P-Noy advocated a zero-based budgeting approach. Also,
unlike the previous administration wherein the erroneous budget proposals are being
approved and used over and over again without concern for proper procedures, P-Noy
promises not to do the same. This month President Aquino will present his budget
proposal to the Congress, he vows to have a financial plan that will recognize the
problems and provide the solutions without malicious effects.
Steps taken to solve problems of this types, the suing of one pawnshop owner who
bought a Lamborghini worth 2.6 million pesos but had not paid his taxes. Smugglers
and tax evaders beware, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Justice Secretary Leila de
Lima, BIR Commissioner Kim Henares and Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez are on
your heels. They are working to catch and punish those who violate the law and do not
pay their due to the government. This are necessary to further the collection of our tax
which is mostly strict to common poor people but lax and tolerant to wealthy people
who can afford to take counter-steps so as not to pay the correct amount of their tax
that should have been worth millions.
Public-Private Partnerships has been mentioned by Aquino to be one of his
solutions. In general this is an efficient and cost-effective solution to be dreamt of. But
lets all take at the advantages and the disadvantages. The advantages as Aquino said
it is that, we will have what we want, it will not cost us any money but we will have
some revenue, aint that a good deal for us? But will the result of this partnership will
have an improved quality of services and facility provision or would they worsen? In the
long run who would benefit? The Private companies? The Government? Or the people?





Monique Diana Fandagani
ABPP4