VERA Files
In his inaugural State of the Nation Address (SONA) a year ago, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ended his speech with a declaration that “the state of the nation is sound,” even as the country was still grappling with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. considers the “Build Better More” program as the “pinnacle” of his vision for an “equitable, prosperous and resilient” Philippines.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology just finished building infrastructure to improve broadband capacity in Luzon. Bills to rightsize the national government, promote e-governance, and regulate e-commerce activities are still pending in the Senate.
Marcos continues to improve the government’s social protection programs for Filipinos heavily affected by poverty, calamities and disasters. His proposed pieces of legislation on health response have not been enacted into law.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s promise to boost local energy sources is anchored on private capital, so the government is courting investors to beef up the country’s natural gas and renewable energy industries amid a looming energy crisis.
Marcos admitted that the Philippines is walking a “very fine line” in balancing foreign relations. He said the Philippines must refrain from embracing the “cold war mentality” without having to choose between global powers such as the United States, Russia and China.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. breezed through the education sector, identifying only five general changes he wanted to implement for learners and teachers in the country. This is a task Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio took on as Education secretary.
One year into office, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is yet to deliver “substantial” progress on his promises to improve the Philippine economic situation. But the administration’s economic managers stay optimistic that the country “remains firmly on track” toward post-pandemic recovery.
Out of the four labor-related promises Marcos mentioned in his maiden SONA, none tackled the pressing issues that Filipino workers face today.
Of the six promises Marcos made on agriculture, three were fulfilled. His administration succeeded in providing loans to the agriculture sector for farm inputs, imposing a one-year moratorium on payment of land amortization and interest and the signing into law of the new Agrarian Emancipation Act.