President Aquino's SONA 2013 Reaction Paper Sample

        July 22, 2013- When our country’s president, President Benigno S. Aquino III delivered his fourth State Of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City. As far as we could remember, in his first SONA during 2010, his most memorable line having been delivered after his inaugural, “We can dream again”. While in 2011, we observed that the way he addressed his SONA highlighting corruption sounds really personal and in his SONA last year, in 2012, he declared, “Nothing is impossible if the Filipino people see that they are the only Bosses of their government…they themselves will lead you to meaningful change.”

            It was good to hear that we have experiencing economic growth during his presidency. He stated in his SONA the accomplishments and the status of our goals last 2012. Goals include Economy, Employment, Poverty alleviation, Education, Peace and order/defense, Foreign Policy, Infrastructure, good governance, disaster preparedness, and legislative wish list. An improvement may be observed in some aspects but failed in others.

            “Many Filipinos still do not feel the economic growth that the Aquino administration keeps on trumpeting”, Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco and Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said. Yeah, I know more Filipinos would agree to this statement since many of us, especially those who were poor and unemployed do not feel a good economy. I think Aquino administration should do more for the poor. His Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is relevant but there are some who were not deserve to benefit it because there are poorer Filipinos who should be the one to benefit it.

            In his 11,674 words, 55 pages speech, most of what he is stating was the accomplishments of the country during his term, what he wants to achieve more for the Filipinos but he missed to tell how and when he will do that. He missed to state his major plans for the next succeeding years of his term, the steps of achieving his goals for the country. I was looking for his strategic plan for jobless Filipinos, for reduction of poverty rate and for the development and modernization of agriculture and as well as fisheries and forestry but it was lacking in his speech.

            He even forgot to address our OFW’s. It was so disappointing. I know our OFW’s were been waiting for his words for them. The status of conflict between nations in West Philippine Sea, the unresolved extrajudicial killings, and the issues in Mining were not also mentioned. Although he declared a 7.8% economic growth, unemployment rate increases because jobs were decreasing and poor farmers were not given enough agricultural funds.

        Since daang matuwid (straight path) is the trademark of P-Noy Administration, I believe that it is better if he had given specific time or period for the Investigating Agencies to come out with the results regarding issues on Cadavero, PDAF(Priority Development Assistant Fund) scam, MRT extortion and others. I know we all want to hear from him declaring that he would not allow even his political allies to commit abuses and corruption because he himself will make sure that they will pay under the law.

            His fourth SONA has the longest duration compared to his previous speeches but there are still concerns of the countries he missed. He focuses more on accomplishments but not in his plans for the country. But after all this, whatever status we have, we cannot blame him directly because we all know how hard to lead a country. He was been a good leader and I do believe that he is doing well and all we have to do is to participate and do our part as his Boss as he said and I think he should advice his judicial and legislative councils to follow the straight path of governance as a trademark of his administration.