|
Friday, July 28, 2006
Editorials: Sona’s web of dreams
Depending on which side of the political bed one is soundly nestled, so does one’s mood is nourished.
There were varied reactions to President Arroyo’s recent State of the Nation Address (Sona), and many of them came from people whose views depend on which side of the bed they are sleeping in.
But politics being the way it is here, we cannot really expect anything more.
Vision
The 2006 Sona was decidedly what it was said it would be, a departure from the Sona of previous years that sounded more as apologies of government failings as well as attempts at cover-up of the telling issues the administration had to face then.
This time around, the President’s address was a web of dreams.
She wove a vision of a forward-looking administration set “to spend P1 trillion to build airports, roads, ports and other tourism facilities” envisioned under the planned “super regions.”
The “dream” is expected to be realized when the President’s term ends in 2010, funded not only from revenues of the value-added tax and supposedly “behaved Bureau of Customs and Bureau of Internal Revenue,” but also from shifting a “huge part of the financial burden to local government units (LGUs).”
And there would be no new taxes.
Worth waiting for
Under this aspect of the Arroyo dream, “the national government can readily finance P1.21 trillion of infrastructure from 2006 to 2010,” thus, said one lawmaker who believes in what the President has described in the Sona.
She also plans “to attract investments… by making food affordable, wages competitive, electricity rates lower, and infrastructure modern and less costly.”
Such a dream, indeed, is worth waiting for.
Reservations
But then, one presidential disbeliever from the Church, acting as “destroyer” of dreams, claims the Sona offered a wonderful vision of the republic’s future, but whether the President could deliver on her promises, he has “serious reservations.”
He hopes the “Sona agenda would be realized as envisioned by the present national leadership” but he cannot, however, believe “the same national leadership (that) cannot clean up the country of … illegal gambling like jueteng,” could deliver on such grandiose national projects.
The Sona’s pro and con does tax one’s credibility.
But as the hoi-polloi would say, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 28, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
