Manila: President Benigno Aquino III delivered his final presidential address brimming with pride that his administration did well, but critics said he had not done enough to address basic issues such as hunger.
Left-wing protesters clashed with riot police amid a downpour on Monday as they tried to breach a barricade of barbed wire and shipping containers ahead of the Philippine president’s final State Of The Nation Address.
Some of the approximately 4,000 drenched protesters started to push away the metal cargo containers and iron railings blocking them from getting close to the House of Representatives in suburban Quezon City where Aquino delivered his speech, police said.
At least three policemen and 16 protesters were injured when authorities used water cannon to push back the activists, who hurled rocks and bottles at officers, according to police and Red Cross volunteers.
In a two-and-a-half hour State Of The Nation Address (SONA) that wraps up the accomplishments of his administration, the 55-year-old bachelor President said he is confident that he would turn over to the next leader a government that had achieved much even as there is still 10 months still left in its six-year term.
He said he said his administration created not just jobs but meaningful employment.
“Let me be clear: We created permanent jobs; we did not hire an abundance of street sweepers,” he said, adding that unemployment had fallen by 6.8 per cent — the lowest in a decade, under his term.
Aquino said the number of strikes dropped to only 15 under the present administration compared to the 199 from the previous government.
He added that only one strike was reported in 2013 — the lowest in the country’s history.
The President said that the diminishing numbers of Filipinos employed abroad had gone down from 9.51 million in 2011, to 9.07 million based on December 2014 meaning that fewer of them see the need to leave the country to find jobs.
Aquino said his administration had started and is continuing reforms to improve the economy by opening up the country to more investments through the enactment of the Philippine Competition Act and the Foreign Ships Co-Loading Act (Cabotage Law) which lowers the cost of moving commodities.
Likewise, he also harped on the government’s reforms towards accountability of public officials and said that the Office of the Ombudsman was able to file cases and prosecute a number of high ranking public officials.
“If reforms such as this will continue, the country can achieve first world status by the next generation,” Aquino said.
The President also boasted about his accomplishments in the area of improving the country’s defence against external threats and capability to respond to natural disasters.
“From just one C-130 cargo aircraft, we now have three and were are expecting the arrival of two more in the coming weeks. This is in addition to three EADS CASA C-295 medium lift transport, one of which had already been delivered and another two will be in operation by the year’s end.
These is in addition to the two dozen new helicopters recently placed into service’
“The country will also receive the first two of the 12 South Korean F/A-50 fighter jets by year end,” he said.
During his speech, the President also made a veiled reference to his political party (The Liberal Party’s) favoured candidate whom he said, would continue reforms that he had started.
Referring to Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, he said: “Their continued criticisms against you means that they are afraid of you. They fear you because of your integrity, efficiency, and willingness to work. Mar, you are proof of the adage that ‘you can’t put a good man down.”
Hours before Aquino made his speech at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in suburban Quezon City, hundreds of marchers had braved the rains and held a demonstration while trying to put up road blocks along the path of the protest march.
Dozens of policemen as well as marchers were wounded in the scuffle as demonstrators tried to block the road with forty-footer shipping containers.
Such confidence of nanay and tatay I confide, a project to know who the real inuuna the town, before yourself.”
On the part the watchdog organisation, Social Watch Philippines (SWP), Aquino only deserves a “failing grade” with regards to delivering the promises he made in his previous SONAs.
Economics Professor Leonor Magtolis Briones said that based on the Millennium Development Goals target on poverty, the Philippines failed in meeting its 17.2 per cent poverty rate goal.
“As of the first semester of 2014, poverty incidence remains at 25.8 per cent proving that despite the flagship poverty reduction programmes of the government, poverty levels have remained virtually unchanged,” she said.
