He didn’t use the word goodbye but President Aquino on Monday might as well have said it as he expressed gratitude in his farewell State of the Nation Address (Sona).
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” Aquino said, quoting from the Book of Timothy. But Aquino said he’ll stay with the Filipino people and will continue to fight for and with them.
“This is only the beginning,” he declared, saying that the May 2016 general elections would be a referendum on his administration.
He profusely thanked every member of his Cabinet with Interior Secretary Mar Roxas getting a lion’s share of the tributes. It was a near endorsement of Roxas as his presidential candidate but not quite.
But he left out Vice President Jejomar Binay who resigned from the Aquino Cabinet last month.
President Aquino asked the people: Will you squander in one election the gains the country has made under his daang matuwid (straight path) governance?
2016 is a referendum
“There is a prevailing sentiment that I think could be captured in one question,” Aquino said, speaking in Filipino. “The question is: Will all that we have invested, all we have worked hard for, disappear in one election?”
“With that in view, the next election will be a referendum for daang matuwid,” he added.
Aquino said it was the people who would decide whether the reforms the country had achieved would become permanent, or would just be a temporary improvement in a long history of the country being down.
Aquino said the Philippines could become a first-world country in one generation if only the reforms he had started under his watch would continue unabated.
First world dream
It was a dream nobody dared imagine, he said.
“You can see that if we will not be interrupted, if the daang matuwid would continue, we can be a first-world country in a generation,” he said.
If the economic reforms would continue, we would be on the same level as—if not surpass—the countries we look up to, he said.
He wondered if anybody had dared dream of this when his administration was just beginning.
The question of the President became pregnant with meaning because he delivered it as the faces of three potential presidential candidates for 2016 were flashed across four wide screens in the plenary hall of the Batasang Pambansa Complex.
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas smiled, Vice President Jejomar Binay laughed and Sen. Grace Poe gave a start to see their faces looking out over the gallery as Aquino spoke of next year’s election.
Of the three, it was only Roxas whom Aquino singled out for praise. He was silent on Poe, an administration ally, and made veiled critical references to Binay, the former housing czar of his Cabinet.
It is only Binay who has so far declared his candidacy, styling himself as the leader of the opposition and lambasting the administration.
Beware of crooked path
The President further warned: If the country would tread the crooked path once more, it would wait a lifetime for nothing.
“We would once again be left behind and the upward trajectory of our economy would be broken,” the President said.
A lot of good things had taken root in the country, cultivated by hard work and sacrifices, he said. Nobody in his right mind would dare cut the tree when it was starting to bear fruit, he added.
Aquino also said one question to ask was if the country was following the right path.
If the people would say no, it would be as if they were saying that they wanted to return to the crooked path, he said.
“If that is your response, then I will just keep quiet,” he said.
‘Up to my last breath’
But if they agreed it was moving in the right direction, then he himself would play a role in continuing the reforms by being “dakilang alalay (glorified assistant).”
He added in Filipino: “Even after I have stepped down, up to my last breath you can expect … that you will not be alone. I will be with you, I will be by your side. We will link arms and live the daang matuwid.”
In touting the gains of his administration, Aquino cited the recent Social Weather Stations survey results that eight out of 10 Filipinos believe the Philippines is a developed or is on its way to becoming a developed country.
While these are people’s opinions, economists at the National Economic Development Authority have studied this in a scientific manner and come to the same conclusion.
In his last year in office, Aquino announced that among his priority legislation was the long-pending antidynasty law, which drew the loudest applause of his two-hour-and-10-minute Sona.
As expected, he urged Congress to approve the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, the charter of a Muslim substate envisioned under a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is regarded as the centerpiece of his political legacy.
The President began his 12,000-word speech with an apology for not being able to do the traditional processional walk. He said he was not feeling well. A well-placed Palace source told the Inquirer the President suffered from vertigo early Monday.
In his valedictory, President Aquino said he never thought he was perfect. He added that there were people he trusted to do their jobs but that they also failed him. For these infractions, the President sought for the people’s understanding.
Nonetheless, he said that in all the challenges he faced in his five years in office, he came up with the best decisions he could, based on the available information and the capabilities available at the very moment he had to make those judgment calls.
“My main interest is the well-being of my bosses,” he said, referring to the Filipino people. “I did everything to leave a more just, more progressive and meaningful change in our society. I will let history to be the final judge,” he said.
The President outlined the achievements of his daang matuwid administration—international credit rating upgrades, average of 6.2-percent growth rate that was the most robust phase in 40 years, employment generation and pushing the “sin tax” and the reproductive health bills.
The President took Congress and his “bosses”—the Filipino people—to what he called the “story of the country’s journey on daang matuwid.”
For good measure, video clips showing testimonials of the people and provinces that benefited from the Aquino administration’s programs were shown.
CCT program, Tesda
They included the story of Alyannah Terite, an honor student and incoming freshman at the University of the Philippines, a beneficiary of the conditional cash transfer program; the recipients of the programs of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda); the little known Sitio Electrification Program where nearly 30,000 villages nationwide now enjoy electricity; the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police; and the infrastructure projects in remote provinces and towns in Dinagat Islands, Apayao and Negros Occidental province.
Curiously, even as the President continued to blast former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her close friend, Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda was among those who testified how Aquino had improved the PhilHealth program.
The President also bannered the increased tax revenue collection of government, which breached the P1-trillion mark in 2012; the single labor strike in 2013, a record in the history of the Department of Labor and Employment; the decrease in the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from 9.51 million in 2011 to 9.07 million in 2014; and the 50 public-private partnership projects, 10 of which have been awarded, 13 are undergoing the bidding process while 27 are in the pipeline.
Aquino said that on Tuesday, his office would submit to Congress the proposed P3-trillion General Appropriations Act for 2016.
As expected, President Aquino began his Sona with a litany of the sins of the administration of Arroyo, which included the fertilizer scam and the NBN-ZTE deal.
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