DU30's SONA 2018

Some 15,000 protesters on Commonwealth Avenue. (Photo by the author).

23 July 2018 was sunny all day. Typhoon Josie has left Metro Manila although a light rain came after President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has delivered his State of the Nation Address 2018 and after his effigy dubbed DU30-train has been burned.

The protest march came from two directions and met under the overpass before the Ever department store. The religious organizations led by priests and nuns assembled in the vicinity of St Peter's church then moved toward the merging point. The massive group comprising the familiar left-of- center organizations marched from the Quezon Memorial area preceded by the DU30-train effigy,

Labor issue. (Photo by the author)

Commonwealth Avenue was as colorful as the broad spectrum of issues, causes, advocacies and interests of some 15,000 participants from participating organizations.

It was a peaceful assembly. The police contingent near the stage was relaxed, watching the assembly and listening to short speeches of representatives of the organizations. One speaker read the message of Sen. De Lima which dwelt on the 'shortcuts' that DU30 employed in his governance.

The news went around that something was going on at the Batasan, which explained why DU30 was already late in his report to his countrymen. Former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had toppled House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. Apparently a compromise was agreed on; hence, it was still Alvarez who stood at the rostrum with Senate President Vicente Sotto III to open the bicameral session.

Nuns and other religious were in the march. (Photo by the author)

Of course, DU30 had been saying that he will just read his speech and promised that it would not take him long to do that. He did just that with a few adlibs. The delivery would have been totally lackluster except when he stressed some points for which he received applause.

The first jolt came shortly after greeting of the distinguished guests and his reminder of the two-year war on drugs.

"The war against illegal drugs is far from over," he said, and then explained why this will "not be sidelined."

"Instead," he fired, "it will be as relentless and chilling, if you will, as on the day it began." This has been reverberating in the print, broadcast and social media.

Spokespersons for women issues. (Photo by the author)

With regard to corruption, he thanked Congress for the 'swift passage of the Ease of Doing Business Act, which is a significant fight against corruption and improving service delivery.'

He enjoined government agencies to make their services "truly customer-friendly." "Our people deserve efficient, effective and responsive government services," he stressed, and "they deserve nothing less."

Because of the power struggle at the House that day, the Bangsamoro Organic Law was not ratified. Duterte asked to be given 48 hours to sign it once that has been done.

"I make this solemn commitment that this administration," he declared, "will never deny our Muslim brothers and sisters the basic legal tools to chart their own destiny within the Constitutional framework of our country."

Furthermore, he iterated his pledge "that the ISIS terrorists or groups or its allies will never gain foothold in our country."

DU30 caricatures. (Photo by the author)

He spoke of continuing "to assert and pursue an independent foreign policy" in out international relations.

With regard to "our improved relationship with China," he said that this "does not mean that we will waver in our commitment to defend our interests in the West Philippine Sea."  He clarified that "opening lines of communication and amicably managing differences have led to positive development that include renewed access of Filipino fishermen in the areas in dispute in the West Philippine Sea."

DU30-TRAIN effigy set to flame. (Photo by author)

There were several tasks that he implored Congress to address --

• Pass the bill establishing the Coconut Farmers' Trust Fund;
• Draft terms of reference for the entry of a new industry player "to ensure that the country's telecommunications services are reliable, inexpensive and secure;"
• Pass the free Tertiary Education Act and the increase in the salary of men in uniform, soldiers and policemen;
• As a result of the actions in Boracay, pass the National Land Use Act "to put in place a national land use policy that will address our competing land requirements for food, housing businesses, and environmental conservation;"
• Passage of a law creating the Department of Disaster Management, which is aimed at "genuinely strengthening our country's capacity for resilience to natural disasters;"
• Passage of Package 2 of the comprehensive tax reform program that will "lower corporate income taxes, especially for small businesses;" and 
• Speedy passage of the Universal Health Care Bill;"

He ended his SONA with a happy note (that he has received copy from the Consultative Committee of the draft Federal Constitution) and his favorite quotation from Abraham Lincoln.

 

The feast day of the Immaculate Conception is now a special non-working holiday

Republic Act 10966 "declaring December 8 of every year a special nonworking holiday in the entire country to commemorate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the principal patroness of the Philippines," was approved by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte on 28 December 2017.

This Act originated from the House of Representatives was passed by the House and the Senate on 02 May 2017 and 11 December 2017, respectively. A copy has been posted on the online version of the print edition of the Official Gazette (see picture below). 

RA 10966 as posted on the Official Gazette webpage.
http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/downloads/2017/12dec/20171228-RA-10966-RRD.pdf

This will make twenty-one (21) national, regular and special (non-working) holidays to be observed in the country this coming year, 2018. Twenty were listed in Proclamation No, 269 that Duterte issued on 17 July 2017. 

Some of these fall on weekends: 25 February (EDSA People Power Revolution Anniversary), 31 March (Black Saturday), and 30 December (Rizal Day).

Two dates have yet to be set for the observance of national holidays Eidul Fitr and Eidul Adha, which depends on the Islamic calendar.

RA 10966, in a way, revisits legal and school holidays of Philippine past.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception was not in the school holidays prescribed by the Royal Decree of 20 December 1863, which created the "normal school for teachers of primary instruction for the natives of the Filipinas Islands," but there were other religious feast days included.

The decree provided that "the holidays of the normal school shall be Sundays, feast days, Ash Wednesday, the day set aside for the commemoration of the faithful dead, and also the saint's days and birthday anniversaries of their Majesties and the prince of Asturias, and the saint's day of the superior civil governor," and "the shorter vacations shall extend from Christmas eve to Twelfth-night, during the three carnival days, and from Holy Wednesday until Easter. During said vacations, the resident scholars shall remain in the institution."

When the Americans set up the school system, the schools were allowed fourteen weeks' vacation each year, two of which were the usual Christmas break. In addition to these regular vacations, an Act from the United States Philippine Commission established the following holidays in 1902:

          New Year's Day - January 1.

          Washington's Birthday -February 22.

          Holy Thursday - March 27.

          Good Friday - March 28.

          Independence Day -July 4.

          Occupation Day - August 13.

          Thanksgiving Day - November 27.

          Christmas Day -December 25.

          Rizal Day - December 30.

In addition, the following church fiestas may be observed as holidays by the schools:  

          Epiphany, or Three Kings' Day -. January 6.

          Purification of the Blessed Virgin -February 2.

          Ascension Day -May 11.

          Corpus Christi Day -June 1.

          Assumption Day -August 15.

          All Saints' Day -November 1.

          Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary -December 8.

However, in a proclamation of the General Superintendent of schools on 10 August 1904, the feast of the Immaculate Conception was not included in the "second holidays" for public schools. It retained the Marian event of  02 February, and the patron saint's day of the town was added.

The 1904 listing comprised the Epiphany or Three Kings, January 6; Purification of the Blessed Virgin, February 2; Ascension Day, May 1; Corpus Christi; Assumption Day, August 15; All Saints' Day, November 1; patron saint of the pueblo, one day only.

The women who went to Catholic schools for girls do remember that the feast of the Immaculate Conception was no-classes day. Thus, they were excited when they first heard that a law declaring this a holiday was under discussion in the Seventeenth Congress.

References:

• Blair & Robertson. 1906. Royal Decree establishing a plan of primary education in Filipinas. Appendix: Education in the Philippines. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume XLVI, 1721-1739. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AFK2830.0001.046.

• Atkinson, Fred W. The Present Educational Movement in the Philippine Islands. Chapter XXIX. Report of the Commissioner on Education For 1900-1901. Washington: Govt. Printing Office. 1902. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ahk8492.0001.001

• Philippine Civil Service Board. Calendar 1904-1905. Manual of Information relative to the Philippine Civil Service.  Manila: Bureau of Public Printing. 1904. Page 3. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acf2655.1903.001

• Department of Public Instruction. Bureau of Education. Appendix H. Some of the circulars of the General Superintendent. Annual Report of the General Superintendent of Education. September 1904. Manila: Bureau of Public Printing, 1904. Page 97. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acs9512.1904.001.

• The Government of the Philippine Islands. Dept. of Public Instruction. Bureau of Education. Appendix E. School Calendar. Seventeenth Annual Report of the Director of Education. January 1, 1916 to December 31, 1916.  Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1917. Page 129. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acs9512.0001.017

• Fifteenth Year Rosenstock’s Manila City Directory 1917. Vol XXIII. Page 143.  http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acs9103.0001.001

• Legal Holidays. Manila and the Philippines. American Express. Page 102. 1933? http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ahz9173.0001.001

No effigies burned on DU30's SONA 2017 afternoon

For the second time, the parliamentarians on the avenue leading to the Batasan Pambansa did not burn the effigy of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (DU30). Last year was honeymoon time for the chief executive and the so-called Left. He had appointed leftists to the Cabinet; hence, a cordial mood prevailed on Commonwealth Avenue.

After he delivered his long SONA 2017--scripted and ad libbed--before the joint session of the Senate and the House, the diplomatic corps, and the slick crowd in the galleries, and viewed live on TV by the common people, DU30 surprised the rally crowd by appearing on their entablado. He spoke briefly (around 13 minutes in the YouTube video) but hecklers interrupted him every now and then.

DU30 according to the Socialistas.

There were two effigies of DU30. The Socialistas, who did not mix with the Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan) groups, spoke on their own entablado and displayed their DU30 effigy in military camouflage with sidearms, tagged 'pasista' on his cap. Aside from the large hardboard cut-out of DU30 as Hitler look-alike, Bayan also had effigies of the president held by the claws of the eagle Uncle Sam, with Finance Sec. Carlos Dominguez and DND chief Delfin Lorenzana on the side.

DU30 according to the Bayan bloc.

One fellow hugged his own democratic space in front of the Batasan, right beside the Bayan assembly. In his placard, he described himself as a 'nuissance candidate' during the last presidential elections. He called DU30 a Hitler.

DU30 dubbed as Hitler.

The BlockDuterte group focused on the EJK or tokhang killings. They had sacks of old, junked shoes to display on a large swath of Commonwealth Avenue, past the St, Peter's Church but far from the entablados and red flags of the Socialistas and the Bayan groups. The shoes were intended to represent the missing, the victims of the illegal killings associated with the droga war.

We always tend to gravitate to the lumads participating in protest events in Manila: Lakbayan or the the SONA. The Manobos usually represent the lumads, the schoolchildren and adults with the leaders in their beaded takulong headgear. They lend ethnic color to the mass rallies.

Lumad schoolchildren in protest front line .

In this SONA, the lumad children brought to the fore their schools. They got the ire of DU30 who threatened to bomb these schools. He did not like the children joining anti-government demonstrations, and he alleged that the schools were illegal, not authorized by DepEd, and were being used for leftist indoctrination.

It was a sunless afternoon altogether with slight showers breaking up huddling groups every now and then. The police just watched the rallying crowd, the anti-riot shields stacked far from the entablados.

The surprise visit of DU30 was preceded by barong clad PSG members surveying the Bayan entablado area while he was delivering his SONA. Nobody suspected that he would be coming down here,. But may be Bayan Secretary Gen. Renato Reyes, Jr. and Saturnino Ocampo knew it before hand. There was an amiable exchange of words between them and the police general while the security survey was being done.

Duterte's ASAP: As SONA as possible

I missed the mass action on Commonwealth Avenue during the first State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Rody Duterte on 25 July 2016. I saw him speaking though on the large TV screen at the airport boarding gate for the Emirates flight to Boston MA via Dubai, but the audio was drowned out by the hustle and bustle of passengers waiting to board.

The view of the demonstration moving to the Batasan from the pedestrian overpass on Commonwealth.

I replayed the YouTube video of the SONA as soon as I have rested from the almost 24-hour transcontinental travel. The demonstration of the Left sector on Commonwealth Avenue did not have an effigy burned similar to the various giant paper mache caricatures of PNoy Aquino in all his six years of governance. The unorthodox Duterte had his barong tagalog sleeves rolled up with both hands in his trouser's pockets when he entered the Batasan session hall.

Lumads in the Manilakbayan rom Mindanao.

The almost two-hour long address--scripted and adlib-ed--was interrupted with plenty of loud applause and appreciative laughs from the joint Congress and the gallery audience,

"We cannot move forward if we allow the past to pull us back," Duterte said. "Finger-pointing is not the way. That is why I will not waste precious time dwelling on the sins of the past or blaming those who are perceived to be responsible for the mess that we are in and suffering from."

May be it's a good thing that former president Benigno Cojuanco Aquino III did not attend the SONA event. It could have been very awkward to see him seated with the other living ex-presidents including Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, recently acquitted by the Supreme Court on plunder charges against her. Duterte's lines resonate with what we will mostly remember of PNoy's governance: vindictiveness, putting the blame on GMA in almost every major speech he made in local and international fora.

Instead of an effigy to burn, giant artistic murals of the aspirations of the Filipino masses.

"... During my inauguration last 30 [June] 2016, I said that the fight against criminality and illegal drugs and corruption will be relentless and sustained. ... We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars or below the ground, if they so wish. ..."

The droga war started before his inauguration. The media, church and civil rights groups have since been keeping account of the victims (alleged users/ pushers) of drug-related killings by the police and vigilante groups. None of the 'big fishes' yet have been caught; they're out of country, said Duterte, remotely directing operations via digital signals.

He emphasized later in his speech that"[h]uman rights must work to uplift human dignity. But human rights cannot be used as a shield or an excuse to destroy the country --- your country and my country."

"To our police officers and other officials, do your job and you will have the unwavering support of the Office of the President. I will be with you all the way. Abuse your authority, and there will be a hell to pay, for you will have become worse than criminality itself."

The nation awaits the outcome of the investigation of the National Police Commission on the five police generals he alleged to be connected to illegal drugs.

On achieving peace in the country:

"... To our Muslim brothers, the Moro country, and the members of the CPP/NPA/NDF, let me say this: All of us want peace, not the peace of the dead, but the peace of the living. 

"That is why, I reach out to you, to all of you today. To our Muslim brothers, let us end the centuries of mistrust and warfare. To the CPP/NPA/NDF, let us end these decades of ambuscades and skirmishes. We are going nowhere. And it is getting bloodier by the day.

"To immediately stop violence on the ground, restore peace in the communities and provide enabling environment conducive to the resumption of the peace talks, I am now announcing a unilateral ceasefire with the CPP/NPA/NDF effective immediately.And call on our Filipinos in the National Democratic Front and its forces to respond accordingly."

Duterte lifted the unilateral ceasefire following the reported ambush in Davao del Norte by the NPA, which resulted in the death of one AFP volunteer and wounding of four others. He imposed deadlines for the CPP-NPA leaders to meet. The Left offered their own version of the story: it was the AFP that violated the ceasefire. Jose Maria Sison from his exile labeled his former teacher Duterte, in a heated commentary, a 'butangero.' Of late though, Sison said that they will declare a ceasefire on 20 August, when the peace talks are scheduled to start.

A 'ceasefire' on Commonwealth Avenue during the SONA event.

In his ad libs, Duterte rumbled on many  items in every Fiipino's wish list, which includes traffic, MRT, processing of documents in government agencies, among others.  He offered solutions that hopefully implementing agencies will implement. He spelled out his own dicta on the Bangsamoro Basic Law, on the lumads, and his favorite agendum: federalism.

Hot lines have already been activated:  the 24-hour 911 emergency response hotline was launched nationwide as part of President Duterte's measure to combat crime and corruption, and the 8888 calls are reserved for citizen complaints.

This is not the ending paragraph of his SONA. It was one of his ad libs: "May I address again to the Filipino: Ako po’y nagdo-doble ang pagod para sa inyo, para sa kapakanan ng bayan. Seryoso po ako. Kaya yung mga ganun, ticket-ticket at magkaroon ng gulo, huwag ho ninyong gawain yan. Ito na yung warning ko, yon na ang last, wala nang iba, hindi ko na gagawin: Huwag ninyong sirain yung mga bagay-bagay na ginagawa namin para sa kapakanan ng tao. Mabuti ang magka-intindihan tayo."

He's down to earth. 

Photo credits:  Mon Ramirez