President Aquino's Social Contract with the Filipino People The Vision for the Philippines: A country with...

1. A re-awakened sense of right and wrong, through the living examples of our highest leaders; 2. An organized and widely-shared rapid expansion of our economy through a government dedicated to honing and mobilizing our people's skills and energies as well as the responsible harnessing of our natural resources; 3. A collective belief that doing the right thing does not only make sense morally, but translates into economic value as well; 4. Public institutions rebuilt on the strong solidarity of our society and its communities. Our Mission: We will start to make these changes first in ourselves-by doing the right things, by giving value to excellence and integrity and rejecting mediocrity and dishonesty, and by giving priority to others over ourselves. We will make these changes across many aspects of our national life. A Commitment to Transformational Leadership: 1. From a President who tolerates corruption to a President who is the nation's first and most determined fighter of corruption. 2. From a government that merely conjures economic growth statistics that our people know to be unreal to a government that prioritizes jobs that empower the people and provide them with opportunities to rise above poverty. 3. From relegating education to just one of many concerns to making education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness. 4. From treating health as just another area for political patronage to recognizing the advancement and protection of public health, which includes responsible parenthood, as key measures of good governance. 5. From justice that money and connections can buy to a truly impartial system of institutions that deliver equal justice to rich or poor. Economy 6. From government policies influenced by well-connected private interests to a leadership that executes all the laws of the land with impartiality and decisiveness. 7. From treating the rural economy as just a source of problems to recognizing farms and rural enterprises as vital to achieving food security and more equitable economic growth, worthy of re-investment for sustained productivity. 8. From government anti-poverty programs that instill a dole-out mentality to well-considered programs that build capacity and create opportunity among the poor and the marginalized in the country. 9. From a government that dampens private initiative and enterprise to a government that creates conditions conducive to the growth and competitiveness of private businesses, big, medium and small. 10. From a government that treats its people as an export commodity and a means to earn foreign exchange, disregarding the social cost to Filipino families to a government that creates jobs at home, so that working abroad will be a choice rather than a necessity; and when its citizens do choose to become OFWs, their welfare and protection will still be the government's priority. Government Service 11. From Presidential appointees chosen mainly out of political accommodation to discerning selection based on integrity, competence and performance in serving the public good. 12. From demoralized but dedicated civil servants, military and police personnel destined for failure and frustration due to inadequate operational support to professional, motivated and energized bureaucracies with adequate means to perform their public service missions. Gender Equality 13. From a lack of concern for gender disparities and shortfalls, to the promotion of equal gender opportunity in all spheres of public policies and programs. Peace & Order 14. From a disjointed, short-sighted Mindanao policy that merely reacts to events and incidents to one that seeks a broadlysupported just peace and will redress decades of neglect of the Moro and other peoples of Mindanao. Environment 15. From allowing environmental blight to spoil our cities, where both the rich and the poor bear with congestion and urban decay to planning alternative, inclusive urban developments where people of varying income levels are integrated in productive, healthy and safe communities. 16. From a government obsessed with exploiting the country for immediate gains to the detriment of its environment to a government that will encourage sustainable use of resources to benefit the present and future generations. This platform is a commitment to change that Filipinos can depend on. With trust in their leaders, everyone can work and build a greater future together.

SONA ( STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS ) These are the main topics mentioned in Aquinos 2011 SONA. (1) WANG-WANG I stood before you during my inauguration and promised: we would do away with the use of the wang-wang. This one gesture has become the symbol of change, not just in our streets, but even in our collective attitude. Over the years, the wang-wang had come to symbolize abuse of authority. It was routinely used by public officials to violate traffic laws, inconveniencing ordinary motoristsas if only the time of the powerful few, and no one elses, mattered. Instead of behaving like public servants, they acted like kings. This privilege was extended to their cronies and patrons, who moved along the streets as if they were aristocracy, indifferent to those who were forced to give way and were left behind. Abusing privilege despite promising to servethis is the wang-wang mindset; this is the mindset of entitlement. (2) FEWER HUNGRY PINOYS We have fought against the wang-wang, and our efforts have yielded results. Just this year, the number of Filipinos who experienced hunger has come down. Self-rated hunger has gone down from 20.5% in March to 15.1% this Juneequivalent to a million Filipino families who used to go hungry, but who now say they eat properly every day. (3) BETTER ECONOMY As for business, who would have thought that the stock market would reach seven record highs in the past year? At one time, we thought that for the PSE Index to reach 4,000 points would be, at best, a fluke. We now routinely exceed this threshold. (4) CHEAPER ENERGY SOURCE Just last Friday, a new contract was signed for a power plant to be constructed in the Luzon grid, so that by 2014, our country will have a cheaper, more reliable source of energy. (5) ZERO-BASED BUDGETING To end the wang-wang culture in government, we employed zero-based budgeting to review programs. For this year and the last, zero-based budgeting has allowed us to end many wasteful programs. (6) TAXES GO TO WHERE THEY SHOULD Today we can see that our taxes are going where they should, and therefore there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. I say to you: its not just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits that these taxes would have provided. (7) A MORE HONEST DPWH We are eliminating the patronage politics that had been prevalent in DPWH, and replacing it with a culture in which merit prevails. All projects must have work programs; we will require those involved in projects to submit well thought out plans for consideration, so that each project complements the other. We have also instituted an honest and transparent bidding process to provide equal opportunity to interested contractors. (8) NO MORE OVER-IMPORTATION OF RICE How many years have we been over-importing rice? Many Filipinos thought that there was nothing we could do about it. We envision two things: first, an end to over-importation that only serves to benefit the selfish few. Second: we want rice self-sufficiencythat the rice served on every Filipinos dinner table is planted here, harvested here, and purchased here. (9) BETTER BENEFITS FOR POLICE, MILITARY this July, we have followed through on the housing promise we made in February. We were able to award 4,000 Certificates of Entitlement to Lot Allocation. This is only the first batch of the 21,800 houses we will have constructed by the end of the year. The NHA is already preparing the sites for housing projects in Visayas and Mindanao, with an expanded list of beneficiaries that will also include employees of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and of the Bureau of Fire Protection. (10) TENSION IN THE SPRATLY ISLANDS We do not wish to increase tensions with anyone, but we must let the world know that we are ready to protect what is ours. We are also studying the possibility of elevating the case on the West Philippine Sea to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, to make certain that all involved nations approach the dispute with calm and forbearance. (11) HUMAN TRAFFICKING And here is another example of positive change in law enforcement. The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was signed in 2003. Unfortunately, because the government did not properly implement it, only 29 individuals were convicted in a period of seven years. In just one year, we have breached that amount, convicting 31 human traffickers. (12) MORE JOBS Allow me to talk about jobs now. Our foremost pledge to the Filipino people was to create more jobs, and we have delivered. In April 2010, the unemployment rate was at 8%; in April 2011, it was at 7.2%. (13) HEALTH PROGRAM FOR THE POOR We are giving these poor families a chance to improve their lives, because their progress will be the countrys progress. We are laying down the foundations for a brighter future for the poor. For example, in the health sector: PhilHealth beneficiaries increased during elections, as the agency was used as a tool for dispensing political patronage. Today, we identify beneficiaries through the National Household Targeting System, to make sure that the 5.2 million Filipino families who benefit from PhilHealth are those who really need it.

(14) ARMM Let us turn our attention to the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The politics there have been dominated by horse-trading and transactional politics. Thank you to Congress for passing the law synchronizing ARMM with the national elections. And why do we need to postpone the elections? Because, in their desire to return to or retain power, many are prepared to engage in corrupt practices just to win again. (15) FLOODING PROBLEM One of the possible solutions we are studying is to make the stewardship of these trees beneficial to communities. They will be given coffee and cacao seeds to plant. While they wait for harvest, they will receive stipends for safeguarding the trees planted to mitigate flooding. We are looking at informal settlers, who are currently crammed into our cities, as possible beneficiaries of this program. We will be investing in the people, even as we invest in the environment. (16) MONORAIL SYSTEM DOST and UP have even teamed up to develop a prototype monorail system, which could potentially provide a home grown mass transport solution that would cost us as little as 100 million pesos per kilometer, much cheaper than the current cost of similar mass transit systems. (17) NEW OMBUDSMAN When the new Ombudsman, former Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, takes office, we will have an honest-to-goodness anti-corruption office, not one that condones the corruption and abuses in government. (18) END TO CRAB MENTALITY Let us stop pulling our fellow man down. Let us put an end to our crab mentality. Let us make the effort to recognize the good that is being done. If you see something right, do not think twicepraise it. And so, to the Filipino nation, my Bosses who have steered us toward this day: Thank you very much for the change that is now upon us. The Philippines and the Filipino people are, finally, truly alive. What is a SONA?

According to the Official Gazette, the SONA is a yearly tradition wherein the President reports on the status of the country, and may also propose to Congress, before which the address is delivered, certain proposals for legislation that are believed to be necessary.

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President Aquino vows to end culture of wang-wang President Aquino government lines up new legislative measures for peoples benefit President Aquino calls on private sector to pay proper taxes President Aquino vows to defend countrys territory, sovereignty President Aquino ready to submit proposed 2012 national budget to Congress President Aquino appoints Carpio-Morales as new Ombudsman President Aquino asks Filipinos to stop culture of negativism or crab mentality You can compose a summary of the SONA from the downloadable Tagalog and English transcripts that