Buencamino does political affairs analysis for Action for Economic Reforms. This piece was published in the newspaper Today, 03 August 2004 edition, page 11.
Many watched the SONA (State of the Nation Address) because they wantedto know if the Ship of State was seaworthy. They were not reallyinterested in the destination. All they wanted to know was whether toboard, disembark, or throw the Captain overboard. The Captain knew shehad to start with the good news.
She told luxury class passengers, “Inflation is under control”; newinvestments were made; three million more people found jobs; people aresafer in the streets, in their homes, and in their places of work” ;and to steerage class passengers, she reported, ” Angelo de la Cruz ishome, and malaki ang pag-unlad sa pangunahing pangagailangan.”
I shouted, “Hoist the sails!” upon hearing the good news, but theCaptain said the ship was not ready to set sail and pointed to a gapinghole in the ship’s hull. One look at the hole and it was obvious thatplugging it was going to be very difficult. But she offered theconsolation that, “the beauty of the fiscal problem is that all thesolutions are known, though applying the right ones is tricky.”
The Captain intends to sell some of the ship’s fixtures, “NAPOCOR powergenerating plants and transmission lines must be privatized,” but evenif she makes a good sale, the proceeds won’t be big enough to plug theleak. She would have to “ask Congress to pass eight revenue measuresthat will collect P80 billion more.”
“Great!” I said to myself, “she is going to make everyone else pay forthe hole she made with her three-year presidential campaign.” Be thatas it may, she was not going to let the buck stop at her desk. Shethrew it at the first-class passengers, “The worst offender, yet thehardest to pin down, is corporate corruption. Businessmen must adopt anattitude of tax acceptance, not tax avoidance. They must stop trying tooutrun the tax collector.”
She threw it at her crew, “Bureaucratic corruption with its numerousleakages is bad. So is government incompetence” and threatened themwith more firings, “I have abolished eighty offices under the office ofthe President. I will abolish thirty more. I ask Congress to pass a lawon government re-engineering.”
Then she appealed to the restive steerage class for a little more help,as if the $8 billion a year they pay for third-class accommodations wasnot assistance enough. “Maraming magsasabi: matagal na silangnagsasakripisyo. Ngunit hinihingi ko sa inyo: konti pang sakripisyo,”she implored.
Before anyone could ask, “What happens if after all you have said youwould do, the ship is still not seaworthy?”, she said, “Once we haveproved to our people that we have done what we can within the presentstructure of government… I expect that next year, Congress will startconsidering the resolutions for Charter change.” I laughed with awisecrack who asked, “Does she mean, next year she abandons ship?”
But my mood soured when I realized that some passengers may havedecided right there and then that it was time to build gangplanks—todisembark.
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