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SONA 2008 significance


President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address on July 28, 2008 will be her eighth SONA since assuming the presidency in 2001.

SONA 2008 is also Arroyo’s second to the last SONA; next year’s SONA is her last, before she steps down in 2010.

SONA firsts

  • In terms of security, this will be the first time the President will be stepping into the House of Representatives after the Batasan blast November last year.
  • This is the first SONA by President Arroyo where her fiercest political rival, former President Joseph Estrada, is a free man.
     
    • Last year, after almost six years of trial, the Sandiganbayan found Erap guilty of plunder. the verdict was handed down on September 12, 2007.
       
    • Less than a month after the verdict, on October 25, Arroyo granted executive clemency to Estrada. One of the premises of the presidential pardon was that Estrada will no longer run for public office.
       
    • As a free man, Estrada remains a key opposition leader.
       
  • SONA 2008 is Arroyo's first SONA in a post-JDV House of Representatives.

PGMA's negative image in recent surveys

  • Pulse Asia October 2007 survey -- 42% of Filipinos thought PGMA was the "most corrupt" president in the history of the Philippines since the Marcos administration.
     
  • SWS July 2008 survey -- PGMA got a -38 net satisfaction rating (% satisfied minus % dissatisfied) on her performance -- a new record low for Presidents since 1986.
     
  • Pulse Asia July 2008 survey -- 40% of respondents said President Arroyo's 2008 SONA will be "untruthful"; 46% believed past SONAs were untruthful.

Challenges to the Arroyo administration

  • The President stands to deliver the SONA after surviving serious challenges to her government: the November Manila Pen Siege and this year's marathon Senate investigation on the ZTE controversy.
     
  • The SONA 2008 will be delivered amid historic high prices of oil and goods, rising unemployment, poverty and hunger.
     
    • Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said this year’s SONA will focus on “subsidies, electricity, food production and infrastructure, specifically ‘to what extent these have been achieved'"
       
    • A week before the SONA, Arroyo appealed to oil companies to roll back the price of diesel.

PGMA and Congress

  • This is Arroyo’s first SONA in a post-JDV House of Representatives.
     
    • Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia ended his 12-year term as House Speaker in February this year in the midst of the ZTE deal controversy. His son, Jose III, tagged First Gentleman Juan Miguel Arroyo in the alleged fraudulent $329-million national broadband network project deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp.
       
    • Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles, majority leader in the 13th Congress, succeeded him after getting the endorsement of the majority led by the President’s party Kampi.
       
    • De Venecia has assured senators that he will testify at the Senate hearing on the NBN-ZTE deal.
       
  • For three years in a row (2005 to 2007), Arroyo’s allies in the House Committee on Justice saved her from an opposition-led impeachment attempt.
     
  • Majority of the congressmen are Arroyo allies while majority of the senators are members of the opposition.
     
  • Congress passed two of the measures Arroyo requested in last year’s SONA: creation of Civil Aviation Authority and Cheaper Medicines Act.
Source: Full text of PGMA's SONA (2001-2007), QuickSearch, Pulse Asia, SWS Last updated: July 24, 2008
Tags: sona,, sona2008
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