SONA 2008: Where We Are; Where Are We?

Am trying to think through just what snapshot President Arroyo gave of the Philippines during her State Of the Nation Address yesterday, June 28. In my next post I’l try to collect my thoughts better. But among the disturbing things I heard was the renark that the charter of the Social Security Sustem would be amended to allow the SSS (now headed by presidential loyalist Romulo Neri) to use its funds to extend housing loans breyond the statutory limit of 10%. Never mind that all employees are already mandatory contributors to the PAG-IBIG Fund.

We will have to closely watch how this scenario unfolds, given the fact that we are now also being told that the windfall revenus from the value added tax on oil products are now considered, and used as catch-all contingeny funds for the government power, rice and other dole-out programs.

For now, this is the State of the Nation that this writer saw: