July 22, 2019, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte delivered his fourth State of the Nation

Address (SONA) in front of 3000 lawmakers and guests which took place at Batasan Pambansa
in Quezon City. The 4th SONA laid down the plans of the Duterte administration for the next
three years and highlighted the President’s legacy. SONA 2019 delivery was delayed by 1 hour
as he waited for the go-signal for the chopper to depart Malacañang due to bad weather
condition. His speech started at exactly 5:15 in the afternoon and concluded at 6:49 pm or longer
in the originally declared 45-minute speech, due to some off-the-cuff remarks of the president.
As the father of the nation, President Duterte delivered his SONA, highlighting the
accomplishments of his administration for the past year and proposing the changes that he would
still want to pursue in the coming years. The accomplishments of the past show that there is
nothing that this nation could not achieve for as long as there is an effort to do so. It reveals how
much changes we have had and how much we are still expecting to have in the future.

The President talked about many things that happened during his administration and what
he wants to happen in the remaining years of his reign. He laid out his plans for our country such
as Rehabilitation of tourist attractions, Improvement of telecommunication in the country, Tax
reform and etc. He also stated the achievements of his administration. There are many things
that the President talked about but let’s focus on the economic plans and achievements of the
administration that he stated in his SONA.

There are economical achievements that the President stated in his SONA but it is only a
few. The economical Achievements that he mentioned are: First is in the Education aspect, Pres.
Duterte commends Secretary Leonor Briones and the Department of Education for having over
27 million enrolled students from kinder to senior high school. This is a quite big achievement
of the administration because having 27 million enrollees from kinder to senior high school is a
big number because the current youth population of the Philippines is around 33 million. There
are still a lot of difference between the number of enrolled youth and the total youth population
in the country but still it’s a great achievement of the administration because the number of
enrolled students in this administration is much bigger than of the previous administration.
Another achievement that the President mentioned is the decreasing of the Poverty incidence rate
in the country. He said that the Poverty Incidence rate decreased from 27.6% in the first half of
2015 to just 21% in the first half of 2018. This is a good thing to hear because there is a big
decrease in the poverty incidence in our country although only around 6% is the total of decrease
it’s still a good thing that the poverty in the country is being lessened. The last achievement he
mentioned is the Loans for Macro, Micro, and Medium Enterprises or MSME’s. MSMEs are
considered as the backbone of the economy. These enterprises provide us the opportunity to
generate job opportunities, raise taxes, and make the cycle of economy work better. In as much
as business owners would like to venture more in the world of business, they are compelled to
put it into the waiting line. The main reason is the lack of financing resources to carry out their
plans. So, they are being boxed as MSMEs. Studies reveal that there is about 90% of MSMEs in
the country. Thus, this high percentage reflects the high possibility of missed opportunities due
to lack of resources. People would like to expand their businesses by adding branches, expanding
their covered areas, and the likes. But the financial limitation that they have hinders them to
grow into what they have envisioned. They go from one bank to another trying their luck to take
a loan but they are ending up with more burdens because of too much interest. In the end, they
choose to stay at their current level instead of expanding. The government can see that with the
help of the additional loan allotted for them, the business industry of the country will continue to
grow further. President Duterte was very proud to present one of the milestones of his
presidency. One of which is the project of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) whereas
they released about three billion of loans for the MSMEs. Such financial advancement has
helped different industries expand their businesses. In return, we are also able to open a lot of
new job opportunities as well as increases tax. Business owners and enterprises cannot help but
be thankful about the changes that they can enjoy right now because of the provision of MSMEs
loan.

Those are the economical achievements being mentioned by the President. President Duterte also
mentioned about his plans for the economy of our country. The plans he had mentioned are: First
is about the tax reform in the country. The President calls for the passage of the Package 2 of the
Comprehensive Tax reform Program otherwise known as the Trabaho bill. Trabaho stands
for Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-Quality Opportunities (Trabaho) bill. This bill
seeks to: reduce the corporate income tax rate from 30% to 20%, broaden the tax base by
removing some of the preferential or lower corporate tax rates, and to rationalize tax incentives
by making them performance-based, targeted, time-bound and transparent. The bill has been
opposed by economic zone groups amid fears that tax perks will be taken away. They even said
that some foreign investors have held off expansion plans due to uncertainty on how the bill will
turn out. Businessmen also fear the measure would lead to job losses – ironic as trabaho is the
Filipino word for job. But this was opposed by the administration and said that the measure will
be revenue-neutral and is not geared towards generating funds, but just towards fixing the tax
regime. The next plan that the President mentioned is the Salary Increase. The President asked
the Congress to pass the Salary Standardization Law which will raise salaries for all national
government workers, including teachers and nurses. But what is the Salary Standardization Law?
Executive Order No. 201, or the Salary Standardization Law (SSL), was signed by President
Benigno Aquino III in February 2016 after Congress failed to approve the bill that would give
government workers the wage increase that the DBM announced in November 2015. Under the
SSL, 1.3 million government employees, except for incumbent elected national officials, would
be given four rounds of yearly salary increases starting Jan. 1, 2016. On the average, the
employees received 55 percent of what those in the private sector were getting in hopes that the
pay increase would help the government “attract and retain competent and committed civil
servants.” The increase, which would cost a total of P226 billion, raised Salary Grade 1 received
by the lowest-paid government employee, from P9, 000 to P11, 068 monthly by January 2019.
The monthly salary of the next President, Aquino’s successor, was also raised from P120,000 to
P388,000 by 2019. So was the hazard pay of all military and uniformed personnel, from P240 to
P840 monthly by Jan. 1, 2019. The Senate-House deadlock over the 2019 general appropriations
bill caused a delay in the implementation of the fourth and last increase. To make possible the
release of the overdue salary increase, President Duterte on March 15 issued EO 76, which
amended EO 201, or the 2016 SSL, which, in turn, modified the salary schedule and authorized
the grant of additional benefits to both civilian and military personnel. This would be a big help
for the Filipino employees and workers because their salary would be able to fill in their needs
but there are some consequences that might happen such as the increase in prices of goods. The
salary increase would lead to the increase of prices of goods because the people now have the
enough purchasing power to buy goods and it can lead to shortage so the last resort of the
producers is to increase the prices to prevent shortage. The last plan he mentioned is the Land
use planning. He asked the Congress to pass the National Land Use act, which will develop lands
in the countryside. This will encourage sustainable economic growth in provinces. The proposed
NLUA creates a national land use authority that will draft and oversee a national land use plan
that will classify land according to use: protection (for conservation), production (for agriculture
and fisheries), settlements development (for residential purposes), and infrastructure
development (for transportation, communication, water resources, social infrastructure). Such a
measure is deemed critical as it will help the Philippines manage its resources, map out its
agricultural lands for food security, determine hazardous areas, and delineate protected areas.
This would be help the economy of the Philippines because it will allow our country to meet the
demands of the investors coming to our country and it would also serve as basis for the LGUs in
crafting respective development plans. Because of the National Land Use Act we would attract
more investors in our country and it will help our country to raise its economy again.

Overall the President didn’t talk much about the economy of our country but we are all
hoping that the plans that he had mentioned in his SONA would be fulfilled. As far as I see there
are improvements in our economy since the Duterte administration started altough there are also
downfalls in our economy but I hope our country can keep moving forward and improve more
this time.