What must be in PBBM’s 4th SONA?
PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will deliver his 4th State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 28, in the aftermath of widespread flooding across Luzon and its neighboring islands in the southwest, as well as fresh from his trip last week to the United States, where he met with President Donald Trump.
The SONA is an occasion where the President reports to the Filipino people what he has accomplished so far and what he plans to do moving forward.
This is a particularly crucial period as he is midway in his term, and as political analysts have pointed out, the poor showing of his senatorial slate in the May midterm elections is an indication of public disappointment over his administration’s performance in the past three years.
At this point in his presidency, Mr. Marcos must clearly spell out his policies and programs for the next three years and tell Congress what major legislations need to be passed to help the nation move forward and recover public trust.
On the economic front, he should spell out the government’s strategy to cushion the impact of what he poorly negotiated during his US trip – a 19% tax for exports to America, and the overall impact of global trade disruptions due to Trump’s harsh tariff policies.
At the ground level, the people would want to know how his administration plans to generate jobs for our armies of unemployed college graduates, whose main resort is to seek greener pastures abroad. Mr. Marcos must also address the concerns of farmers, jeepney drivers, and other labor sectors amid the continuing rise in the prices of food items, fuel, and other basic goods.
In governance, the President must address the issue of graft and corruption at all levels of government, which nowadays are strongly reflected in poor infrastructure, as people ask why there has been so much flooding despite billions of pesos spent on supposed flood protection projects.
The clock is ticking for Mr. Marcos to deliver on his promised growth.
Now is the time for him to aggressively make changes happen if he hopes to leave a positive lasting legacy as the son of a dictator who was given by the Filipino people a chance at redemption for the Marcos family name.
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