FORMER President Fidel Ramos and opposition congressmen yesterday said President Arroyo missed the point because her sixth State-of-the-Nation address focused on new ambitious plans instead of on her achievements.
Ramos could not hide his disappointment over the President’s one-hour speech, saying Arroyo was supposed to talk about what her administration has so far achieved and not her future plans.
"This is a state of the nation address. Iba yung performance, iba naman yun mga results. Yun ang inaabangan natin, yun ang mas mahalaga di ba?" he said.
"Ganito yan. ‘Yung SONA chapter lamang yan ng inaugural address, hindi ho ba? At yung SONA nung isang taon, ang dapat tutukan natin at tingnan ang resulta ngayon. Ano ba yung performance talaga?" he said.
Asked if he believes that Arroyo’s new plans could be realized in the next few years, Ramos smiled and said, "Eh, natapos na ’yung five years, eh."
I think I know why she didn't focus on her "achievements" sa SONA niya this year. Because many of the so-called achievements her apologists and media spokesperson were talking about just a few days before her SONA address were BS, at ayaw niyang "ma-fisk" siya sa SONA speech niya because some people are prepared to point out the inaccuracies and misleading government statements and statistics (fisk means "fact-check", btw)
It's one thing for Bunye and Defensor to make fools of themselves with their spins and lies, but it's another matter if Arroyo did the same thing during her SONA speech.
Here's Neal Cruz, for example, getting ready to fisk arroyo:
There will be thunder and lightning as the heavens protest the lies that will be uttered today; but they will be concentrated around the Batasan where GMA will deliver her Sona, which will be enriched with statistics. After all, as somebody said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. Our President use all three, but there will be more of the third today.
Government statistics are supposed to be credible. When the government says something, it is supposed to be the truth. Not anymore. Government statistics have been corrupted and fudged under the Arroyo administration. When the government says, for example, that there are enough classrooms, that means packing 100 students into each classroom. Before, when you have no job, you are jobless, period. Now, if you happen to land a part-time job once during the year, you are listed as “employed.” Also now, the government has reduced the number of poverty-stricken families by simply lowering the poverty level.
Don't forget their bullshit numbers/stats na bumaba raw ang population rate natin.
This article naman came out on sunday, where the opposition was prepared to fact check Arroyo if she uses her misleading statistics and lies again:
Think tank eyed to belie GMA Sona claims
By Gerry Baldo
07/23/2006
Members of the political opposition are planning to create what they dubbed a “shadow government” — an independent think tank that would produce data and other statistics that would be poised to refute the claims and the figures to be dished out by President Arroyo in her annual State of the Nation Address (Sona) tomorrow.
No full house can be expected by the Chief Executive as members of the opposition blocs in the House of Representatives and the Senate yesterday vowed to boycott the Sona tomorrow since they said it would entail nothing but “more lies” from Mrs. Arroyo.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and members of the so-called “Batasan 5” — the five party-list congressmen who had holed up in the Congress compound in Quezon City for more than four months in February to avoid arrest by the police over charges of rebellion slapped against them by the administration — said it would merely be a waste of time to attend Mrs. Arroyo’s Sona since they “expect more insidious lies from her and her speech writers, who specialize in double-talk and deception.”
“(It will entail nothing but the) same old lies...When you have a fake President, you expect fake statements,” Pimentel said at a weekly media forum in Quezon City.
“Listening to the Sona is a waste of time simply because the figures and statements are not really true,” Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño, one of the Batasan five, said.
According to them, they are eying to create a think tank aimed at making the public aware which of Mrs. Arroyo’s claims were merely conjured up as she has done so in her past Sonas.
According to former Sen. Francisco Tatad, big media entities could help out along this line by putting out their own figures and statistics for the people to see for themselves whether Mrs. Arroyo was totally telling the truth in her Sona or if she was stating lies and rattling off false statistics just as she did in the previous Sonas.
Casiño said the Arroyo administration has been showing an apparent penchant for “faking things” and taking matters out of context to turn them into something favorable.
He cited as an example Malacañang’s putting on a “spin” on the matter of the employment and poverty statuses of the country which the Palace manipulated to appear positive by changing the definition of terms pertaining to Filipinos who should fall under the category of being “employed.”
In doing so the administration made the figure under the bracket much bigger than it really is.
Neal Cruz and members of the anti-GMA opposition were prepared to fact check arroyo if she used the same talking points Mike Defensor used, but Arroyo instead talked about future promises, na mas mahirap ma fact-check, dahil 5-10 years pa bago mo malalaman kung totoo o matutupad ni Arroyo ang pangako niya. I guess the admin anticipated the fisking kaya iniba nila ang focus ng SONA ni Arroyo.
And to make matters worse, Arroyo offered little details or an estimate on how much her projects would costs and how the government is gonna pay for it? With more taxes? Let's hope not. But I really don't know much because napaka-vague ni Arroyo tungkol dito.
Miriam defensor Santiago comments on the speech:
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, an Arroyo ally, called it a "first time SONA instead of mid-term SONA.
"As a lawyer and political scientist, I respectfully submit that the speech is lopsided. First of all, it is all economy and virtually no governance. Second, its focus is on urban and hardly on rural areas," she said.
She said the SONA "is a list of promises on large-scale infrastructure projects but it does not quantify the cost of all these projects."
In her SONA speech, Arroyo outlined programs for her planned creation of "super regions" as she called for the return of power to provinces.
Santiago said she expected the SONA to dwell on "voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption."
"To concentrate on the economy without mentioning governance is a skewed order of priorities," she said.
Look, focusing on the economy is nice (and who among the admin and opposition isn't for improving the economy, anyway?), but our economy won't take off if most of our gov't resources and money are being used to buy political support and used for Arroyo's own political survival. In short Corruption, Lack of Accountability, A Cover-up Mentality... This illegitimate admin and it's defenders has an us-vs-the-world, fuck-the-majority mentality that is not good for our country.
=====
Monday Roundup:
- GMA plays up to House, LGUs, offers poll campaign roadmap
President Arroyo yesterday continued with her courtship of administration congressmen and local government officials, this time offering them a roadmap to follow for their campaign promises to the people come elections 2007, as detailed in her sixth State of the Nation Address (Sona).
In her speech, she thanked congressmen and local executives, as well as military officials, putting on the spotlight Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan for his success in ridding the country of insurgents. Palparan, however, has been pointed to by militants and human rights groups for the many summary executions of activists in the country.
But ensuring that her allies in Congress and the local executives would continue supporting her, Mrs. Arroyo outlined a massive spending program in areas where her key allies are represented, claiming these projects are to kickstart the economy. She urged opponents demanding her ouster to give up what she described as a lost cause.
There was no stress on education, employment, peace and order and other problems that bedevil the nation. It was also noted that her Sona message was directed to her audience in Congress, not to the Filipino people. - PCIJ: SONA heralds "news face of patronage."
Even Sergio Ortiz-Luis, chair emeritus of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, got the same sense upon listening to Arroyo’s SONA. Remarking that Arroyo is “either a master politician or a good economist,” the businessman said her project-laden speech has won her the solid support not only of the heads of local government units but of voters at the local level less than a year before the mid-term elections.
“How can her candidate lose at the local level, especially if these projects come through? These will mean jobs for everyone there,” said Ortiz-Luis in a recent Inquirer interview.
Or if not the 2007 elections, then the more immediate matter now in the hands of congressmen — the impeachment complaints against Arroyo.
For this reason, the impeachment case is practically doomed, says Casiple. Because who else outside of the minority bloc will endorse the complaint and risk losing Malacañang’s patronage? At the same time, there is an open invitation — spelled out in “why pick up old fights when we can join hands instead?” — being extended to the political opposition to join her bandwagon so it can share in the spoils. - MLQ3's reaction to the SONA:
1. Two campaigns have begun. The first, for amendments to be approved in a referendum (immediately after the speech, the drum-beating began); the second, the 2007 elections (Neil Cruz on Viewpoint surprised me when he asserted it’s likely that more than 79 opposition members of the House will be elected).
2. It was a division of the spoils.
3. It was the Mother of All Pork Barrel Speeches.
4. It is, however, proof of something we don’t pause often enough to recognize. Regardless f what the President does, or doesn’t do, things move on their own. Many of the plans and projects announced aren’t the fruits of the President’s hard work, or leadership, it’s the result of continuous meetings between national and local officials, elected representatives and members of the bureaucracy. Some of these projects began when the administration was new; others date back to previous administrations; some were identified and mapped out long ago, but it is only now that they have been given the green light.
5. Therefore, much of what was announced would have happened, regardless of who is President; but there are definitely many officials happy that they have been given a curtain call, and that regardless of her motives, the importance of those plans has been recognized.
6. We should rename the Batasan Pambansa the Kroll Opera House. Not even Ferdinand Marcos indulged in such public displays of legislative sycophancy. Or double-speak.
Quezon also blogged the event. - Senator Magsaysay slams gov't coverups on Joc Joc's case
- Edcel Lagman believes all the impeachment complaints filed between June 25 to July 24 are "prohibited complaints" because these were all filed before the one-year bar rule has expired and should be dismissed.
- Palace to Opposition: Focus on 2007 elections instead of impeaching arroyo. Focus on elections? hindi ba yan rin ang sinabi ng adminstration sa opposition dati after edsa tres, focus on the 2004 presidential elections instead of trying to remove ARroyo? Look how well the elections turned out.
- MLQ3: Roll out the Barrel
- Heh.
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