Today, the nation will go to the streets. Today the people shall march and scrape the dust and blow into the air the stench of society’s iniquities under the malevolent leadership of President Noynoy Aquino. Today, all the crying words that pour forth from the tongues of the voiceless — all the sentiments that resound as drumbeats from the hearts of the poor, the deprived and the oppressed — all the bare fists that dare to defy and demolish the lies and deceptions of President Noynoy in the halls of Congress — shall make manifest the true State of the Nation – the Filipino People’s SONA.
All the events in the past months of President Noynoy’s rule as President of the Philippine Republic are destined to explode like a volcano eruption at this juncture of his governance. All the roads and paths paved by his promises in the previous SONAs are after all directed to a false paradise – a haven of lies and deceit. His matuwid na daan is, after all, a “straight road to hell”.
He has reneged on his pledges and his acts have all floundered in utter failure. One would ask Why?
In the first place, he does not have a clear and definite vision of a future society. Not even a sketchy design of what and where he intends to bring Philippine society to the future. But a clear perspective view of a future social architecture must be based on a clear and thorough analysis of the incumbent conditions of society from which one can draw a blueprint of transformation. And he does not have this either. So, whatever he said and did in the last two years of his administration were all reactive issuances from the tip of his tongue. President Noynoy is no different from all other trapo politicians in our midst./ He is not at all a visionary, much less a statesman.
Secondly—and this is utterly despicable of him as a Filipino leader—he is completely obeisant to foreign concerns and interests. He has proven to be a shameless puppet of the American imperialists. He exhibits no qualms in ascertaining that the economic-political-and military designs of US Imperialism be given mileage in the Philippines and in the Asian region. Nothing is more evident of his art of puppetry than the EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) that surrenders Philippine Sovereignty to accommodate the basing of American troops in our territory. This and the favored grants to foreign corporations in plundering our natural and mineral resources are inexcusable acts of a leader that presumes to be a Filipino. Is he a Filipino, after all?
Most farcical of all in his vaunted pronouncements of “equality before the law” – he makes a travesty of the time-honored principle of “independence of co-equal branches of government”. His covert bribery of our legislators in Congress to vote for the impeachment of former Justice Corona, and his latest act of defiance of the Supreme Court decision smacks of elitist arrogance and is a clean mirror of his dictatorial bent. His is a kind of irresponsibility as a supposed leader of government who makes a mockery of the fundamental law of the land. So, he is displaying his penchant for “above-ness” or superiority to the law!
But above all, his blatant display of hypocrisy, feigning a posture of humanity with his Oplan Bayanihan program, when the stark reality on the ground is his soldiers’ left and right abuses and violations of the human rights of the Indigenous Peoples in the countryside. The armed security forces of the state under him as Commander-in-Chief exercise impunity in maiming , torturing and killing the Lumad peoples, and dispossessing them of their ancestral lands to give way to the big mining corporations that extract our gold ores and other minerals beneath our mountainlands. Is he a humane leader of the Filipino people?
TODAY –Let us hearken to all these truths and realities from the lips of the people themselves. For truly, it is the people, not the ruling elite who must legislate for the advancement of their own interests, well being and welfare as members of the Parliament of the Streets!
