GMA defends top choices, warns detractors

July 31, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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MANILA = President Gloria Macapagal, in her 8th State of the Nation address July 28 defended the tough choices she had to make in view of rising world oil and rice prices, and warned that she won’t let anyone stand in her way.
“I will let no one and no one’s political plans threaten our nations’
survival,” Arroyo told a joint session of Congress.
Although past presidents have been invited, only former President Fidel V. Ramos was present. Noticeably absent were former presidents Cory Aquino and Joseph Estrada and former Speaker Jose de Venecia.
“We have made tough choices,” she said. “My responsibility is to solve
our problems now, and provide solutions on how the country should
advance in the future,” she said.
She spent a substantial portion of her 57-minute speech justifying her refusal to scrap the value-added tax (VAT), which had been largely blamed for diminishing the buying power of many Filipinos.
On the contrary, President Arroyo argued, removing the VAT will only
“strip away the means for our people to ride out the world food and
energy crises.”
Arroyo praised the efforts of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)
who send money back home to ease the economic woes not only of their
families in particular but also of the country in general.
“I care for our OFWs,” she said. “Nagpupunyagi ako ngayon sa kanilang
mga pangkaraniwang Filipino (I laud them, ordinary Filipinos).”
The President also mentioned the recent agreement between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government over the problem of ancestral domain during the meeting in Kuala Lumpur July 27.
The president, dressed in fuschia-colored Maria Clara dress, arrived at the Batasan Complex on board a helicopter and was escorted to the plenary hall by legislators led by top ally Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
Just before President Arroyo delivered her speech at 4 p.m., militants
led by Bayan and Gabriela held their own program along Commonwealth
Avenue leading to the Batasan Pambansa Complex, during which they burned
the President?s effigy five times her size.
As in the past, police prevented thousands of rallyists from proceeding
to the Batasan as a security measure.
A few days before the Sona, former top officials of the present and previous administrations lambasted Arroyo for what they called her “Seven Sins.” These included rampant corruption in the government, abuse of executive power, growing poverty and hunger and other ills.
Labor groups have vowed to clamor for more wage increases.
In key cities across the archipelago, militants staged protest rallies
to denounce the mounting incidence of poverty aggravated by the
increasing prices of commodities. Most of the rallies were peaceful, but
the Suara Bangsamoro group of Muslim human rights activists blamed the
city government of Zamboanga City of dispersing their small demonstration.
Arroyo, who opened her speech defending the VAT, said it was because of her government’s decision to raise the VAT that the peso appreciated from P56.50 to the dollar to P40.20. She said the peso later fell to P44 because world oil and food prices shot up.
“If we remove the VAT, business confidence will decline, interest rates
will go up, the more the value of the peso will fall, and the more
commodity prices will rise,” she said.
“We have persevered, no flip-flops, with much criticized but necessary
policies, including oil and power VAT, rule of law, and oil
deregulation,” she said.
She also said “leadership is not about doing the first easy thing that
comes to mind; it is about doing what is necessary, however hard.”
In response to criticisms about the country?s increasing dependence on
rice imports, President Arroyo said Filipinos were being hard on
themselves. She noted that even during the Spanish regime, the people
have been buying foreign rice.
The reason, she said is that Philippine topography “doesn’t always
cooperate.”Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile plains. Nature instead put our
islands ahead of our neighbors in the path of typhoons from the Pacific.
So, we import 10% of the rice we consume,” she said.
“To meet the challenge of today, we will feed our people now, not later,
and help them get through these hard times. To meet the challenges of
tomorrow, we must become more self-reliant, self-sufficient and
independent, relying on ourselves more than on the world,” she added.

She said that because of government subsidy, the National Food Authority
(NFA) continues to provide one of the region?s cheapest rice to the
low-income bracket.

Nonetheless, she said her government is committed to improve the
productivity of farmers.


Posted by News Team | Filed Under Philippine News 

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