SONA 2008 – the contents

It looked like things went well with the SONA yesterday. In the office, we didn’t really seem to care but as the usual course goes, even with a foggy mind as I scoured the internet for information about it, I landed on pages of comments and materials to browse upon for input.

* SONA The Technical Report

* Covering the SONA ritual
It is a typical SONA day, and we are likely to report in typical fashion — count how many times the crowd burst in applause and giggle, time the speech, describe the gowns, estimate the size of the rallies, track the security incidents, list and put a price tag on the projects the President will rattle off in a series, and solicit comments on the speech from a sampling of political leaders and militants.

I find it irritating for our corrupt official to dress in OSCAR like fashion at this time. I guess this is the time for them to show off their ‘wealth’ to each other and to the masses. Not that its anything wrong. Just irritating. The SONA is NOT a social party and yet it seems that way.

* SONA belies true state of education
In her hour-long speech, Arroyo made no mention of her accomplishments in the basic education sector, apart from a perfunctory line saying that elementary and high school education is free.

I wonder why she missed out these details? Is there something to hide? It’s a sad tale to remember that once upon a time, Philippine education was looked upon as one of the best in the world. Now, we’re down to the list of moronic educational systems especially in the rural areas.

* SONA pickiness with numbers leaves state of economy hazy
“Improved collections further continued in the first five months of 2008 with revenue collections growing by 11.5 percent to P482.43 billion from P432.59 billion during the same period last year.”

Where are the actual numbers of improvement in the country? Why does this look like propositions for future projects? What happened with the ‘PRESENT’?

* Hunger, poverty figures the President chose to ignore
In fact, SWS reported that “both Severe Hunger and Moderate Hunger are now higher in Metro Manila than in other areas.” In both Visayas and Mindanao, severe hunger likewise increased.

So there weren’t much improvement there huh?

Gaaaah… I wanted to hear good news but there seems to be not much improvement going on in the country with this kind of SONA. What is going on in this country? *sigh*

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