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The 2008 State of the
Nation Address
of Bogus President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
A Statement by Bayan-Canada National Organizing Committee*
27 July 2008
Whether on Sunday, July 27 or the Monday after, whether in Canada’s west
coast gateway, Vancouver, to its capital, Ottawa, and Canada’s financial
heartland, Toronto, in between; Bayan-Canada organizations from the west
to the province of Quebec, will be holding various events from a People’s
Festival, a People’s Worship, and a picket in front of the Philippine
Embassy to celebrate the Filipino people’s movement as it struggles for a
better future for the Filipino people and international solidarity, and to
unmask the glittering falsehoods that will be peddled on July 28 in the
Philippine Congress.
As you know, that very day the bogus President of the Republic of the
Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, will be delivering her fantastical
state of the nation address. She will stand there before a body that is
overwhelmingly made up of ill-gotten millionaires to weave a mendacious
tale of advancement for the Filipino people. Ever mindful of the largess
out of Macapagal Arroyo’s schemes to cling to the throne, the Philippine
Congress will sycophantically grunt at this fool’s gold as their minds
wander off to thoughts of another year’s worth of pork barrel.
As the great anti-imperialist author Mark Twain once made popular, there
are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” No doubt Arroyo will dip
frequently into her grab bag of numerical sorcery to chant her incantation
that her so-called Medium Term Philippine Development Plan of 2004-2010 is
actually working. This kind of plan, premised as it is on the old wives’
tale that subjecting a maldeveloped country’s proto-industries to the
brutal competition of a world market dominated at all levels by imperial
powers develops that country, has been cliché in the Philippines now for a
century. Only a psychotic can believe that doing the same thing again will
somehow get different results.
To disabuse us of this notion that any development is actually happening
in the Philippines, we need only recall that the National Statistics
Office of the Philippine government can actually claim with a straight
face that April 2008 unemployment in the Philippines is only 8%. Just to
compare, Canada’s unemployment rate is said to be only 6.2% by Statistics
Canada. In other words, we are supposed to believe that a country in deep,
deep, deep, deep, deep depression and backward maldevelopment has barely
worse unemployment than one of the richest countries in the world possibly
in the throes of a mild economic contraction?
This staggers the mind and no Filipino, except in the worst bad faith,
will believe it. To be fair, perhaps the numbers were conjured by leaving
out the fact that last year 1,070,192 Filipinos were deployed abroad as
overseas workers, not to mention those that actually emigrated, or did not
return after doing some tourism, etc.
The Filipino people know the palpable truth through the ache of their
growling stomachs, and the silent emptiness of another loved one in
strange foreign lands just so the family might survive another day that
the country’s situation is again worsening as it did the year before, and
the year before that, and so on. The most accurate way to picture the
direction of the Philippine economy is going down stairs. On those rare
best of years, when everything goes right, it either does not get worse or
it gets just a little worse. This is one of those years in which not only
are the Filipino people hit with weekly oil price increases of P1.50, rice
prices have already soared by 1/3 and corn prices by 1/5 even as daily
minimum wages hover between P345 or P382, or between $8.00 and $9.00
Canadian per day.
As we vow to redouble our efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize the
Filipino people in Canada to struggle for a brighter future for the
Filipino people overall, and to defend our rights and improve our welfare
in Canada; we also call on our Canadian friends to redouble their efforts
to arouse, organize and mobilize the Canadian people to pry away the
blood-soaked talons of its imperialist state from its loving embrace with
the Philippine fascist state.
*Bayan-Canada organizing committees exist in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto,
Ottawa and Montreal.
Contact:bayan.canada.noc@gmail.com
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The 2008 Philippine President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA)
Or the Gloria Spin on a Sinking Ship
July 28, 2008
On July 28, 2008 Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gives her
yearly State of the Nation Address. This televised lying session will
most probably include the following:
●
The political crisis her administration faces is caused
by external forces that will soon blow away.
●
The
Philippine economy continues to grow and the Philippines will soon become
a “first world” nation.
●
The
unemployment rate in the Philippines is almost at par with a first world
nation like Canada.
●
She
cares about the poor and will continue her social welfare programs to
focus on the hungry masses.
●
She
has a sparkling human rights record.
●
She
is the legitimate elected leader of the Philippines.
No amount of spin doctoring can cover up the following facts:
●
Former staunch political allies are lining up to expose her family’s
corruption in government.
●
She
has been linked to numerous scandals including “kickbacks” for her family
and cronies.
●
The
poverty and unemployment rate continues to spike up along with the prices
of basic commodities.
●
There is a food and energy crisis in the Philippines.
●
While Typhoon frank devastated the country and claimed more than 650 lives
she spent 1.5 million USD on a junket to the US to visit Bush and watch a
Manny Pacquiao boxing match.
●
1,070,192 Filipinos left the country last year to work abroad.
●
There are more than 1000 victims of political killings and abductions of
activists during her presidency.
●
More
than 60% are dissatisfied with Arroyo making her the most unpopular
president in Philippine History.
●
Taped conversations with the elections commission head caught her rigging
the 2004 presidential elections.
It’s time
to say:
Enough is enough!
Expose Arroyo!
Oppose Arroyo!
Oust Arroyo!
Bayan Canada National Organizing Committee: bayan.canada.noc@gmail.com
Philippine Solidarity Network of Canada:
capcpc@web.ca
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THE STATE OF THE NATION, THE STATE OF THE PEOPLE 2008
In the tradition of past Philippine Presidents, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
will deliver the State of the Nation address on July 28, 2008.
Similarly, the people will take their State of the People address right
into the streets of the many towns and cities in the Philippines.
This is where the reality being played out in the streets meets and belies
the fiction being peddled from the Malacañang Palace.
Just what is the state of the people?
The people are hungry. Rice prices continue to go up, from P50 to
P70/kilo, depending on the quality of the rice. A common everyday sight is
rice line-ups at National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses to buy as little
as a kilo of cheap rice.
To extend the rice supply, families mix NFA rice with better quality rice.
Overseas Filipinos tell of putting rice
bags inside their door-to-door boxes from Canada to the Philippines. It is
ironic that the Philippines, a rice-growing nation, is now the world’s
biggest rice importer.
Oil prices are expected to reach P65/liter by the end of July. With the
12% VAT (Value Added Tax), prices have gone up, from food prices to
transportation fares to utility bills to tuition fees. Tuition fees are up
at all state universities and colleges; at the University of the
Philippines, the increase was 300%. An estimated 375 private schools in
the Philippines raised their tuition fees. Public school principals report
seeing a visible trend of children transferring from the private schools
to the public school system.
The people are poor. To meet its basic needs, a family of six needs P806 a
day but the daily minimum wage in the National Capital Region is P362,
which hardly meets half of the family’s daily cost of living, not even if
both father and mother work. More than 83% of the 85 million Filipinos are
forced to live with less than Cdn$2 per day.
The people have no jobs. The domestic job crisis and unemployment of 11.3%
over the period 2001-2007 is described as the worst 7-year stretch in
Philippine history. Consequently, thousands of Filipino men and women are
forced to go abroad by the sheer lack of opportunities for decent jobs and
livelihood. At the end of 2006, there were 8.2 million Filipinos overseas
in 197 countries and territories. The Philippines is the largest among the
most migrant- and remittance-dependent countries in the world. Last year,
Philippine remittances were US$ 14.5 billion and essentially served to
prop up an ailing Philippine economy.
The people are terrorized. Mrs. Arroyo stubbornly ignores the findings and
recommendations made by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial
Killings that the Philippine military and its agents are responsible in
large part for the systemic pattern of extra-judicial killings and
abductions of over 900 men and women from legal people’s organizations in
the country. Mrs. Arroyo’s continues to use the “war on terror” to silence
legitimate dissent and finds strong support from the US Government in its
economic, political and military aid. Over US$160 million has been poured
to the Philippines as a reliable Asian ally in the “global war on terror,”
making it the 4th largest recipient of US military aid worldwide. The
consequence means no let up to the extra-judicial killings, enforced
“disappearances” and other human rights abuses against the people.
The government is corrupt. Corruption and fraud involving the First
Family, her cronies and other government officials is public knowledge.
The scandal over the $329 million ZTE-NBN project has not been resolved
and still the government continues its conspicuous and obscene misuse of
funds, as evidenced by the junket delegation that went with Mrs. Arroyo to
the United States for the State Visit. At a time of severe economic crisis
and the disaster caused by the recent storm “Frank,” Mrs. Arroyo surely
did not need these many people with her on her trip to the U.S. -- 59
congressmen, 10 cabinet officials and a senator!
In this context of severe economic and political crises, the immoral and
corrupt Arroyo government has lost its authority to rule the country. This
is the government that bows to the needs and interests of the
multinational businesses before that of the people, a government that
sells the national patrimony to big foreign mining corporations, including
Canadian mining firms. Beholden to U.S. and other foreign interests, the
Arroyo government refuses to institute genuine and comprehensive agrarian
reform and national industrialization that will develop Philippine
domestic capacity in terms of production, technology, job creation,
capital accumulation and self-sufficiency. The people who take to the
streets to fight for their basic rights to food, life, jobs, security and
sovereignty are met with repression by the very same government that is
supposed to take care of their interests.
The Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights extend its solidarity
and support to the Filipino people’s struggle for their basic rights and
their vision for a just and humane society.
We support the people’s call to oust a President who has lost its moral
and legal authority to rule. We continue to call on the Canadian
government to review its development assistance to, and security
cooperation with the Arroyo government to ensure that these do not
aggravate the current human rights situation.
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights
Vancouver, Canada
July 27, 2008 #
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THE STATE OF THE NATION,
THE STATE OF THE PEOPLE 2008
Canada-Philippines
Solidarity for Human Rights
Vancouver, Canada
July 27, 2008
In the tradition of past Philippine Presidents, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
will deliver the State of the Nation address on July 28, 2008.
Similarly, the people will take their State of the People address right
into the streets of the many towns and cities in the Philippines.
This is where the reality being played out in the streets meets and belies
the fiction being peddled from the Malacañang Palace.
Just what is the state of the people?
The people are hungry. Rice prices continue to go up, from P50 to
P70/kilo, depending on the quality of the rice. A common everyday sight is
rice line-ups at National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses to buy as little
as a kilo of cheap rice.
To extend the rice supply, families mix NFA rice with better quality rice.
Overseas Filipinos tell of putting rice
bags inside their door-to-door boxes from Canada to the Philippines. It is
ironic that the Philippines, a rice-growing nation, is now the world’s
biggest rice importer.
Oil prices are expected to reach P65/liter by the end of July. With the
12% VAT (Value Added Tax), prices have gone up, from food prices to
transportation fares to utility bills to tuition fees. Tuition fees are up
at all state universities and colleges; at the University of the
Philippines, the increase was 300%. An estimated 375 private schools in
the Philippines raised their tuition fees. Public school principals report
seeing a visible trend of children transferring from the private schools
to the public school system.
The people are poor. To meet its basic needs, a family of six needs P806 a
day but the daily minimum wage in the National Capital Region is P362,
which hardly meets half of the family’s daily cost of living, not even if
both father and mother work. More than 83% of the 85 million Filipinos are
forced to live with less than Cdn$2 per day.
The people have no jobs. The domestic job crisis and unemployment of 11.3%
over the period 2001-2007 is described as the worst 7-year stretch in
Philippine history. Consequently, thousands of Filipino men and women are
forced to go abroad by the sheer lack of opportunities for decent jobs and
livelihood. At the end of 2006, there were 8.2 million Filipinos overseas
in 197 countries and territories. The Philippines is the largest among the
most migrant- and remittance-dependent countries in the world. Last year,
Philippine remittances were US$ 14.5 billion and essentially served to
prop up an ailing Philippine economy.
The people are terrorized. Mrs. Arroyo stubbornly ignores the findings and
recommendations made by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial
Killings that the Philippine military and its agents are responsible in
large part for the systemic pattern of extra-judicial killings and
abductions of over 900 men and women from legal people’s organizations in
the country. Mrs. Arroyo’s continues to use the “war on terror” to silence
legitimate dissent and finds strong support from the US Government in its
economic, political and military aid. Over US$160 million has been poured
to the Philippines as a reliable Asian ally in the “global war on terror,”
making it the 4th largest recipient of US military aid worldwide. The
consequence means no let up to the extra-judicial killings, enforced
“disappearances” and other human rights abuses against the people.
The government is corrupt. Corruption and fraud involving the First
Family, her cronies and other government officials is public knowledge.
The scandal over the $329 million ZTE-NBN project has not been resolved
and still the government continues its conspicuous and obscene misuse of
funds, as evidenced by the junket delegation that went with Mrs. Arroyo to
the United States for the State Visit. At a time of severe economic crisis
and the disaster caused by the recent storm “Frank,” Mrs. Arroyo surely
did not need these many people with her on her trip to the U.S. -- 59
congressmen, 10 cabinet officials and a senator!
In this context of severe economic and political crises, the immoral and
corrupt Arroyo government has lost its authority to rule the country. This
is the government that bows to the needs and interests of the
multinational businesses before that of the people, a government that
sells the national patrimony to big foreign mining corporations, including
Canadian mining firms. Beholden to U.S. and other foreign interests, the
Arroyo government refuses to institute genuine and comprehensive agrarian
reform and national industrialization that will develop Philippine
domestic capacity in terms of production, technology, job creation,
capital accumulation and self-sufficiency. The people who take to the
streets to fight for their basic rights to food, life, jobs, security and
sovereignty are met with repression by the very same government that is
supposed to take care of their interests.
The Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights extend its solidarity
and support to the Filipino people’s struggle for their basic rights and
their vision for a just and humane society.
We support the people’s call to oust a President who has lost its moral
and legal authority to rule. We continue to call on the Canadian
government to review its development assistance to, and security
cooperation with the Arroyo government to ensure that these do not
aggravate the current human rights situation.
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights
Vancouver, Canada
July 27, 2008 #
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