SONA 2019

The annual and fourth State of the Nation Address or what we so-

called as SONA of this term’s president, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte for

the year 2019 just happened yesterday, 22nd of July 2019 at the Batasang

Pambansa Complex in Quezon City. Lots of known personalities and

government officials attended the said event, around 3,000 lawmakers

were present. The speech lasted for 93 minutes, which is quite longer from

the expected time of duration which is said to only last for 45 minutes. For

this year’s SONA, Duterte mentioned everything that he did for the country

and for his countrymen for the past three years of his service. All the

changes that he did, all the plans that he have made and he is making for

every Filipino, every program that he implemented for the convenience of

all, and just all of the positive things that he thought he did to change the

gruesome state of the country from all the problems that were left unsolved

for a lot of years; for the betterment of the wellbeing of all the Filipino

people. He listed all his achievements for the past years of his term and all

his priorities for the remaining three years that he will put his service to the

country.

At the beginning of President Duterte’s speech, he showed his

gratitude to all of the people who stand with him and supported him

throughout the past three years of his term, he had also given an emphasis

on the result of the latest survey of the Pulse Asia, which I found quite

irrelevant because mentioning such kind of result makes it somehow look

like he is bragging for something, for everything that he did. In his speech,

he did not forget to mention his long fight against illegal drugs and

corruption, and along these he called the attention of all the government

officials, persuading them to reinstate death penalty to demolish all the

crimes related to drugs and plunder. Death penalty has been quite a

debate for a lot of people in our country, for a long time. Some oppose the

idea of killing people as a way of getting the justice that they seek, a lot did

not agree about it, but there are some people who are open with the

concept of death penalty and supported its purpose. As for me, I do not

accept the whole concept of death penalty either, I believe that there are

a lot more humanly ways out there to seek justice from the crimes that those

criminals did. Some of the achievements that his administration achieved is

the one from Bureau of Customs, it collected a huge amount of money

amounting to P585 billion. I have to agree with what Duterte said about this

big accomplishment, that if the corruption in the Bureau of Customs, it was

known that the BOC were full of plunderers, were cleaned as early as

possible such big amount of money could have been collected before as

well. One thing that Duterte given his attention to on his speech is the poor

services of all the agencies in our country, such as SSS, PAGIBIG, NBI, and

the like. We all know that getting papers and all sorts of requirements from

those agencies are so much of a hassle and requires too much of our time,

effort, and money as well. I hope that the solution that the president

presented about this matter would really work. The president had also given

some recognition to all the environmental problems that his administration

resolved for the past years. The rehabilitation of one of the precious and

beautiful places in the country, Boracay and the ongoing rehabilitation and

revival of the Manila Bay. These are some of the accomplishments of the

Duterte administration that I am so happy about. These places were too

much of a mess before, many thought that it will be left neglected and

unresolved as well, but Duterte did something people are grateful for, he

saved it. These are just some of the topics that Duterte mention on his

speech, he talked about so many important matters other than all the

things that I have mentioned.

The SONA has stirred up a lot of comments from people, both

negative and positive, but mostly negative. From all the guest and up to

the speech of Duterte, it was the talk of the town for the whole day. For a

Filipino citizen, I am really hoping for greater change, something that would

make this country a better place to live in, a place that I feel secured and

at peace every time I go out, a place where I can easily trust people, and

a place where I can build my family in the future. I am really hoping that

the Duterte administration will work at its best to achieve what every Filipino

like me is seeking for. I am hoping for the best. Hopefully, everything that

Duterte uttered on this year’s SONA will come to life and will not be just some

words said but never done. I am hoping that the remaining year that

Duterte will be serving our country and its people, will only be full of positive

changes and truthful acts.