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Thursday, July 28, 2005
Editorial: ‘Buying-time’ Sona
If anything, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (Sona), delivered before the joint session of Congress last Monday, was nothing more than one designed to buy time for the administration.
It offered nothing that portrays the true state of the nation, not even giving a sweeping view of what the Philippines was undergoing up to the moment the address was being delivered.
It was probably the only Sona where a holiday was declared for Metro Manila for the people to reportedly have time to listen to it.
It is not difficult to surmise, though, why the special non-working holiday was declared.
Faced with the uncertainty of the national situation amidst all the planned anti-GMA rallies in the nation's key cities, the best available strategy for Metro Manila was not to let people out of their homes.
And yet, for all the government's preparation to contain the challenge posed by anti-Gloria protesters, nothing untoward happened.
It just seems the people, many of whom may have kept to their homes and had their eyes glued on television or their ears on
the radio, did not truly nourish any sentiment anymore whether for or against the administration.
Twice they were frustrated by the results of Edsa I and Edsa II.
Another frustration would likely have been perceived by the wary people as being too much of a bad thing.
But the subject of the Sona did serve a notable purpose for the cause of the President.
It was not only able to preempt potential violence from anti-GMA protesters and demonstrators but also offered an alternative to presidential resignation.
This could then be the first time that a political typhoon of "cyclonic" proportion was overcome by an adroit choice of subject of a presidential Sona.
The Sona pointed to the shift to a new system of government as an effective tool for growth and development, bringing it forth as a matter of national urgency for immediate discussion and debate in Congress.
Thus, however one would look at the Sona "maneuver" of the President, the impression would remain that she advocated cha-cha as a way of buying time in order to recover public trust and confidence for herself and in her government.
But for how long?
Only time and circumstance, and the President's determination and sincerity to win back the nation's support, could tell us.
(July 28, 2005 issue)
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