Alexander M.

Centeno
11148691
FINNLEC: SONA REACTION PAPER
This was the first SONA of Mr. Rodrigo Duterte in his 6-year term as the President of the Republic
of the Philippines. The president has acknowledged a lot of problems that are occurring here in the
Philippines and also outside our own country. What I was mostly concerned to hear from him, was his
plans for the next years or what does he see us in 6 years. Though there are some segments of his
speech wherein he does talk about the future of our country, but in those segments he loses focuses and
talks out of script. This is not essentially bad but the manner in which he talked was that he showed more
of talking more of stories rather than plans and made it hard to understand the main points of what
message he was trying to relay towards the audience.
There are a lot of main points that I liked about his speech and one of them was that he talked
about the blame game stating, 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 except maybe
extract a lesson or two from its errors. We will not tarry because it is the present that we are concerned
with and the future that we are concerned for. This shows that he is a president that will be responsible
and be in the front line in the problems that the country will face and will not be a coward despite the hard
times. I also liked that he talked about modernizing our roads and infrastructures because this has been a
problem ever since with the past presidents. Improvements will help transportation and productivity
towards the citizen for economic productivity. In relation to this is faster internet and connectivity since the
internet here in the country has been a big problem with a lot complaints and hopefully with this addition
in the next few months or years it can lead to better productivity. Lastly, I liked that he mentioned about
the international relations of our country towards Indonesia and Malaysia and also invite corporate
partnerships along other countries which would lead to foreign investments that will help the economy as
well. In relation to this was also but having Macroeconomic policies by having prudent fiscal and monetary
policies that can help translate high growth into more and better job creation and poverty reduction, by
which he wants the economy to be stronger with the characterization of solid growth through his term as
president, low and stable inflation.
But asides from the good points, the main concern that most of our countrymen wanted to hear
from the president of the Philippines was his take on the war on crime and extra-judicial killings going on
as many have been dying and a lot are arguing on the debate of human rights in this matter. In President
Dutertes speech he said statistics that since July 1, they have already made 3,600 related drug arrests,
120,000 drug dependents have surrendered and 70,000 of them are pushers and the numbers will just
keep on growing as time passes by. In his campaign, he said that within 3-6 months of his reign as
president he will abolish drugs in our country. As of now it looks like he is on the right track, but I think he
will not succeed by fully abolishing it but minimizing the drug market control of the drug lords uphold. Also
the question that arises from this issue is that does the end justify the mean? In my opinion, it is very hard
to give a standpoint given the facts that we do get results but at what cost? Lives and blood are spent and
what the people want are proceedings through the court of law with regards to the war on crime. And as
far I see it, people just like the results as long as they do not know personally the victims of the killings
and that given the circumstances they see that there costs to be made with regards to a big result.
Greater risk results to greater rewards, but in this case the risk of our own countrymen dying without the
real judgment does not really equal to a reward but a tragedy. Sometimes, we question as well if people
who do bad acts deserve a second chance in life because maybe they are just put in that situation
because they have no other choice but to do it in order to survive in the world today or do those bad
people really dont have compassion and just have greed and violence in their mind? We can never know
until it is too late I guess.
Br. Jose Mari Jimenez FSC, the President of De La Salle Philippines made a letter regarding this
case and I quote from the letter, Furthermore, it is a mistake to believe that we can create a peaceful
society by denying those suspected of wrongdoing their fundamental rights to life and to due legal
process. The doctrine of the common good rejects any notion that the good of the majority may be
attained by violating the fundamental rights of any member of society. It is a mistake to think the respect
for the dignity of each individual and the pursuit of the common good are in competition or opposed to one
another; indeed, protecting and promoting the rights and welfare of each individual is constitutive of the
common good. What is needed to create a better society is that all cooperate in insuring the promotion of
each one's dignity, rights and responsibilities without exception (Solicitude Rei Socialis 1980). I do
believe in the stand Br. Jimenez is stating about the legal process and upholding human rights but it is
hard to say that when the military and policeman are forced to defend themselves against the drug lords.
Situations and circumstances can change perspectives given the different occasions that could occur but
I still strongly believe that there is fine line between respecting human rights and violating them. We
always see in the news that there are people who are affected and involved in the killings that are just in
the wrong place at the wrong time. That is one concern that goes through within this war. What if your
own family was caught up in the shootings, but it resulted towards a great reward of getting pushers and
drug users, then it would be a whole different whole ball game and discussion by then.
In conclusion, I liked some points that were mentioned in the SONA, but the elephant in the room
was not really discussed, but rather sugar coated with statistics and facts in order to see that this is going
somewhere but no statistics of victims or stories of victims were heard. I firmly believe that there should
be legal process regardless of what the person has done or how much harm he has dealt to the country
as to respect human rights.