The second State of the Nation Address of President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was conducted last July 25, 2011. According to the wikipedia.org, The State of the Nation Address (abbreviated SONA) is an annual event in the Philippines, in which the president of the Philippines reports on the status of the nation, normally of a joint session of the Congress(the House of Representatives and the Senate). This is a duty of the President as stated in Artivcle VII, Section 23 of the 1987 Constitution. The State of the Nation Address is delivered every 4th Monday of July at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Batasan Hills, Quezon City. Just a piece of information, President Aquino was the first President of the Philippines who delivered his speech during the State of the Nation Address in full Filipino. The theme for his SONA was TRANSFORMATION where he gave pride to the improvements he has done to the country on different sectors of the society. In my opinion, he is clearly trying to clean the remaining problems left by the previous administration with the intention of putting appropriate punishments for people involved by investigating the trails left by the previous administration. He also reported current and never-ending problems of the Philippines which he said that he will try to solve on the duration of his term. Before we go further let me impart to you that the president in only on his second year of his six-year term so we should not expect big reports for it will be to erroneous to have this kind of judgmental mentality. Let us discuss some of things that President Aquino reported during the last State of the Nation Address and let us give possible solutions with the help of technology.
The anti-“wang-wang” campaign was the first report given by the president which is about corrupt politicians and employees who are evading their tax duties to the country. In my opinion and as what I have seen in the news, the president did a great job of identifying those corrupt agencies and politicians in the country just like the case of the previous administration of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) in just a year. But the government still needs improvement of tracing self-employed and professionals who are the continuing to be tax-evaders of the country. This is why I propose a tracking system. I do not know if the government is already using this kind of technology but if they were, obviously it is not implemented properly. The tracking system that I proposed will be like what they used in the National Bureau of Investigation of the Philippines where they will track if ever a person has criminal records or not. This system will be used by the Bureau of Internal Revenue to track companies, self-employed and professionals, and other persons who needs to pay taxes for the country. The system will go like this: each taxpayer will be required to register to the Bureau of Internal Revenue which involves their type of occupation, salary, and other information; and then every after the collection of taxes done of course by Bureau of Internal Revenue, they will trace those persons who are evading their taxes by establishing a report using the system. This can only be successful if the Bureau of internal Revenue has the complete list of tax payers in the country. I now that this is not an easy system to develop but if they will give the IT sector a chance to solve their problem there is a big possibility that this system will be successful. Hopefully, Pres. Aquino will continue to eradicate graft and corruption in the country in order for people to see the result of what he said during his speech, “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap”.
One of the reports was the large drop in car and motorcycle thefts. From the underlying number of 1010 cases of car and motorcycle theft from the first six months of 2010 it has reduced to 460 cases in the first months of 2011. But the president was disappointed for the fabricated reports of the media to the public which caused the people to think that there is no advancement of the cases. There have been many technologies developed to prevent such car and motorcycle theft. I propose a system that will track an individual’s car or motorcycle using the Global Positioning System or GPS, a space-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites which is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible by anyone with a GPS receiver, provided by the person’s smartphone. He will first attach a device to any part of the car like under the seats, under the car, in the hood and anywhere else as long as it is kept hidden and be hard to find. Nest is when someone stole the individual’s car or motorcycle he can now use his smartphone to track where his stolen car or motorcycle is giving him the opportunity to report to the authorities where his car or motorcycle can be found in order for immediate response. This will help the people to have greater chances of retrieving their stolen car or motorcycle. But the individual must be quick to respond in this dilemma because we may not know but the thieves already found the tracking device and deactivate it or worse they may, in Filipino terminology, “chop-chop” your car or motorcycle before you can even reach them. I think that this technology is already available but a demand for more affordable gadgets is required in order for people with car or motorcycle but has no budget for expensive anti-theft gadgets to have other options.
Another was the decrease of unemployment rate of the country. Different sectors of the government including Department of Labor and Employment, Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and Department of Education are preventing to have job mismatch for the people. But for my opinion, it is not enough. It is much more dependable for the society if the government will support small and medium enterprises more in order to generate more jobs in the country in order for people to have opportunity to have a regular job plus the chance to be with their families along the run. One example of an industry that has a big market is the IT industry which almost every industry nowadays are now incorporated with this industry. The IT sector of the Philippines is arising but in a slow pace. The government should encourage people to invest in the IT industry and the government should also make plans with this sector just like what President Barack Obama of the United States of America did with his meeting with the Chief Executive Officers of different social networking sites and IT-related companies in their country.
One of the things that really took my interest during the SONA was the president’s report about the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), which is a 100 percent government-owned and controlled corporation that runs under the direct supervision of the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines and their tasks are to regulate, authorize and license games of chance, games of cards and games of numbers, particularly casino gaming, in the Philippines; generate revenues for the Philippine Government’s socio-civic and national development programs; and Help promote the Philippine tourism industry. I was really astonished to know that the said division of the government spent 1 billion in Philippine peso just for coffee. And the eight percent funds disbursed for cash advances in the office of the regional governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, located in the Mindanao island group of the Philippines, that is composed of predominantly Muslim provinces, namely: Basilan (except Isabela City), Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and it is the only region that has its own government, were not justified. It is really a big disappointment because the money was already spent before they investigated this issue where if the previous government had preventive measures the money would have gone to a more worthy funding like education and agriculture. So now the current administration should give more power to the Commission on Audit in order to give them the right to assess whether a certain division of the company is having the same modus. The definition of the word audit according to the merriam-webster dictionary is a formal examination of an organization’s or individual’s accounts or financial situation. With this definition, we can say that the Commission on Audit also made lapses on this issue. In order for them to check in full detail all government offices and agencies they should have a system to track in real-time the expenses of each division of the company. There should be an allotted budget over an item for each company at every certain length of time. For example, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation must only spend Php 50 000.00 for coffee for a whole month. Each agency and office of the government must to input all their expenses on the networked system thus the Commission on Audit can keep track of the expenditures. If ever the amount inputted by a certain agency or office over an item exceeds the budget predefined the system will prompt the Commission on Audit in order for them to investigate it quickly and file cases if necessary. The inputted data of each agency or office will also stand as their financial statement therefore they will have no escapes if they are planning to disregard putting in the system other expenditures.
He also took pride of congratulating the Department of Science and Technology, the premiere science and technology body in the country charged with the twin mandate of providing central direction, leadership and coordination of all scientific and technological activities, and of formulating policies, programs and projects to support national development, for their new inventions like the mosquito traps, landslide detector, and the planning of a monorail system with the partnership of the University of the Philippines. I think the government should not only focus on the inventions of the DOST but also for those innovative Filipinos who came up with new ideas or inventions but don’t have enough resources to develop it. They should allocate the funds efficiently in order to fund the inventions of the new inventors for them to stay in the country which will also benefit the economy rather than being brain drained by other countries.
In general, the second State of the Nation Address of the was good but I may say that I was expecting more from Pres. Benigno Aquino III even with only a year on the seat as the president of the Republic of the Philippines. The purpose of the State of the Nation Address is to report to the congress and to the whole Philippines what he has done or accomplished from the past year and what will he do next on the preceding year. But some of us, especially students, were not contented because there was no report about the problems in the education sector especially now that there is a lingering issue about budget cuts in state universities and colleges. Does this mean that the current administration did not complete anything for the education sector of the country for the past year and they don’t have any plans for it on the preceding year? It is really a big disappointment because, as everyone knows, education is one of the vital sectors of any government in any country yet it was one of the things not clarified during the president’s State of the Nation Address. Well let us just hope that he has big plans to help the education sector of the Philippines like giving additional budget to state universities and colleges rather than cutting them even though he didn’t include it in his SONA. Furthermore, may he do everything he promised and may all of us, the people of the Republic of the Philippines, participate in his envisions for the welfare of our country.
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