VERA Files
In 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte ended his State of the Nation Address (SONA) with a vision: “a comfortable life for everybody, all Filipinos,” within his last three years in office.
The government’s economic team is calling on Congress to immediately pass the remaining packages under the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) along with other economic stimulus measures to help revive the economy reeling from the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
With two years remaining in President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, the government is “still committed” to complete “many” of its projects under the government’s ambitious Build, Build, Build (BBB) program.
Ending government corruption is a campaign promise and an oft-repeated commitment of President Rodrigo Duterte since he took office in June 2016. However, most of his anti-corruption efforts had been marked with sacking and recycling of officials.
Most of the promises related to the protection and preservation of the environment made during President Rodrigo Duterte’s fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) remain in progress. Significant efforts have been put into developing renewable energy sources, rehabilitating Manila Bay and priority tourist destinations, and distributing land to indigenous communities in Boracay.
In his fourth year in office, while President Rodrigo Duterte signed a law that will provide a wage hike for civilian employees of the government, he still failed to end labor contractualization in the country.
More than halfway into his six-year term, President Rodrigo Duterte has neither made new promises nor followed through on previous ones related to the media since his 2016 state of the nation address. Yet there was no let-up in his clashes with, and tirades against the media.
Less than two years before President Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year term ends in 2022, two of his promises on his peace agenda have been delivered: the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and the enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, repealing the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA).
President Rodrigo Duterte barely mentioned the continuing modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in his fourth state of the nation address in 2019 and even undermined its capability to defend the Philippines from China’s intrusions. (See SONA 2019 Promise Tracker: Foreign Relations)
The rising tensions with China in the West Philippine Sea hogged President Rodrigo Duterte’s fourth state of the nation address in 2019, where he promised two things that remain hanging to this day: