THIRTY-FIVE minutes is the limit President Rodrigo Duterte has set for his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) tomorrow, according to a CNN Philippines report. I expect this “straight from the heart” SONA will run longer than advertised, mainly because the President cannot resist improvising to make a fawning crowd laugh.
Besides, he will need some time to push for two major programs in his third year in office. Tax reform’s second package is the more immediate matter, in that it’s intended to stimulate the economy by bringing down corporate income tax rates and updating incentives. The question is whether lawmakers will push for it sincerely, considering the approach of the midterm elections and a public smarting from inflation. Rising prices of goods have been blamed on the first tax reform package’s approval in December 2017 and its implementation this year, although other factors have helped push prices up.
The second program President Duterte will want lawmakers to get behind is Charter change. To get a sense of whether he can rally support for that, let’s take another look at the priorities he revealed to Congress before last year’s SONA and how much of these got accomplished.
This time last year, the President asked Congress to approve a national land use policy. The House of Representatives had approved its version before he made his speech, but the Senate’s version has remained in the committee level since May 2017. Every administration since that of Fidel Ramos (1992-1998) has attempted this but always got stymied in Congress.
President Duterte also asked lawmakers to amend the procurement law and allow the purchase of medicines and military supplies to go faster. He signed Executive Order 34 before last year’s SONA; in it, he removed the Government Procurement Policy Board’s approval as a requirement for alternative procurement for government contracts amounting to P500 million or more. The Senate, again, is where the draft law has been stalled. It was with the committee on finance as of March 2018.
Also on the President’s agenda for his second year was the creation of a department that would focus on disaster response and resiliency; a law that will “right-size” government agencies; and the return of the death penalty. Senate Bill 1553 on the creation of the Department of Disaster and Emergency Management has stayed in the committee level since August 2017. In right-sizing and death penalty’s cases, the Lower House delivered on the President’s wishes, but the bills await approval by the Senate. Several versions of the death penalty bill are pending (and probably dying) there.
In his first SONA in 2016, the President asked for emergency powers to address the traffic crisis. Last year, he did not ask for it again, but leaned on the local governments to do something and to do it fast. He asked the Metro Manila Development Authority and the local governments of Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and all regional centers to clear obstructions, like illegally parked vehicles, “to ensure the free flow of traffic.” How’s your commute these days?
To be fair, the Duterte administration gained congressional approval for the national budget on schedule in its first two years in office. Both houses of Congress have made progress on the Bangsamoro Organic Law. And some reorganization has taken place. The Office of the Solicitor-General, which had set in motion the removal of former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, has received broader powers; despite being headed by a Marcos loyalist, it is now in charge of recovering that family’s ill-gotten wealth.
He didn’t get everything he asked for, but Congress—particularly an acquiescent Lower House—granted some of President Duterte’s wishes. His self-imposed limit of 35 minutes should be just about enough to set clear directions for Year 3 and to face the biggest question of the day. No, not his plans for consolidating power by gaining control of the Senate in 2019, but, more importantly, where is he leading us all next? What is it that we can hope for?