READY FOR SONA | Workers rush to install new chairs at the session hall of the House of Representatives ahead of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s second State of the Nation Address on July 24. (Photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday said his second State of the Nation Address (Sona) next week will be a “very simple” performance report to the Filipino people, listing what has been his “significant progress” and what more needs to be done.
“It’s really very simple. It’s just a performance report for Filipinos [for them] to see — with the numerous pronouncements and numerous utterances—if these were really meaningful or were just words,” the president said in a brief media interview at the sidelines of the distribution of government assistance in Pampanga.
“It’s a report to the people. I will like to show [to the people] these were what we talked about last year and these are what we’ve already done and these are the inadequacies that we will address; these are the plans,” he added.
Marcos said that he wanted to explain to the people “that we have made significant progress, [that] we can see the difference now, not only in terms of how the systems work, how the government works, it is also in how we are now seen or judged in the international community that’s equally important.”
The president is set to deliver his second Sona on July 24 before the joint session of Congress.
Meanwhile, opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Monday issued a scathing rebuke on the one-year performance of the administration of Marcos for its supposed failure to deliver on its campaign promises that rode on a “hollow facade” of national unity.
Disclose clear plans
At a press forum, Hontiveros criticized how the Marcos administration has supposedly failed to temper the effects of inflation on the economy, curb the cases of corruption in government but supposedly delivering only on the whims of his predecessor, the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The senator expressed hope that Marcos’ Sona would center around the poor, the most vulnerable, the jobless, and the marginalized sectors.
“We hope that in the Sona, the administration will finally disclose clear plans because, for the past year, it seems the administration did not have any plans for these sectors,” she said.
Hontiveros rated Marcos’ first year in office with an “incomplete” grade.
“Just as the first [Sona], the situation has not improved and even got worse, so it is good that the President accepted the grade of incomplete because the country has a lot of catching up to do in the next half decade,” she said.