The crisis is finished; the President is preparing for the SONA. Democracy has triumphed and justice is taking its course.

The SONA goes on, rain or shine. The President looks forward to the opportunity to share her thoughts with the people and join the nation in celebrating our collective accomplishments.

Makati Siege Investigation

On one hand, all the accusations raised by the Magdalo group will be looked into and studied via a mechanism to be announced by the President. She is very determined to get at the root of the matter.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today announced that she will constitute an independent commission to look into the roots of the short-lived and ill-conceived military mutiny in Makati City over the weekend and the provocations that inspired it.

In her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered before a joint session of Congress this afternoon, the President said such actions are deplorable and will be met with the full force of the law, including their political components.

"Yet they signal an underlying problem that we must address," the President said.

The President said that at the request of Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, she is also constituting an independent commission to investigate the Davao bombings.

She said this will also be matched by a PNP Reform Commission.

The President said that she was sure the PNP itself would welcome a comprehensive report that would cure the organization "not only of the failures of the scale of the Al-Ghozi escape but also the daily devils that are the kotong cops."

The President thanked the PNP for its solid support to the government during the Makati siege Sunday.

She said it is a pity that after the government has scored successes in its anti-drug and anti-terrorism campaigns and is in the process of forging a permanent peace in Mindanao, some ill-advised military officers tried to destabilize the situation.

The President said the nation cannot stay divided as "there is so much we need to do together."

"I address myself not only to the joint houses here assembled but to the nation at large: I need you; we need each other," the President said.

In a statement she read in national television late Sunday night after the Makati City siege was resolved peacefully, the President said the 296 soldiers, including 70 officers, who participated in the mutiny will be investigated and their cases will be disposed of in accordance with the Articles of War.

"They have not asked and shall not be given special treatment," the President said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today announced that she will constitute an independent commission to look into the roots of the short-lived and ill-conceived military mutiny in Makati City over the weekend and the provocations that inspired it.

In her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered before a joint session of Congress this afternoon, the President said such actions are deplorable and will be met with the full force of the law, including their political components.

"Yet they signal an underlying problem that we must address," the President said.

The President said that at the request of Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, she is also constituting an independent commission to investigate the Davao bombings.

She said this will also be matched by a PNP Reform Commission.

The President said that she was sure the PNP itself would welcome a comprehensive report that would cure the organization "not only of the failures of the scale of the Al-Ghozi escape but also the daily devils that are the kotong cops."

The President thanked the PNP for its solid support to the government during the Makati siege Sunday.

She said it is a pity that after the government has scored successes in its anti-drug and anti-terrorism campaigns and is in the process of forging a permanent peace in Mindanao, some ill-advised military officers tried to destabilize the situation.

The President said the nation cannot stay divided as "there is so much we need to do together."

"I address myself not only to the joint houses here assembled but to the nation at large: I need you; we need each other," the President said.

In a statement she read in national television late Sunday night after the Makati City siege was resolved peacefully, the President said the 296 soldiers, including 70 officers, who participated in the mutiny will be investigated and their cases will be disposed of in accordance with the Articles of War.

"They have not asked and shall not be given special treatment," the President said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said that for the past year, her government delivered in great part on its commitments.

In her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) before the joint session of Congress at the Batasang Pambansa this afternoon, the President said that a day after overcoming an ill-conceived mutiny by some misguided military officers without bloodshed or damage to property, the country by now, should be at peace.

"At peace in the South, at peace in the countryside, safe in our homes and secure in our communities," she said. "But we remain at war. At war against terrorism, at war against corruption, at war against disease. At war against drugs, the greatest menace facing our country today."

She said Filipinos cannot stay divided with so much to be done together.

"I address myself not only to the joint houses here assembled but to the nation at large. I need you, we need each other," she said.

"Many of our reforms have yet to bear fruit, but there should be no doubt that our country in the fullness of time will reap what was carefully picked, planted and nurtured. And it will be a harvest of plenty," she said.

The harvest has in fact started, she said.

In the area of peace, the Chief Executive said her administration has hit hard at terrorism and made advances towards a negotiated peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the National Democratic Front (NDF).

Barely five months since launching an intensified campaign against illegal drugs, the President said several shabu laboratories have already been closed, with the amount of confiscated illegal drugs already reaching P8 billion. A big fish, Jackson Dy, No. 3 in the Order of Battle, led 14,000 other drug pushers who have been caught.

In the area of education, the President said her government has already built schoolhouses in 600 barangays where previously there has been none. She has also launched massive distance learning program or education TV in areas that cannot be reached by conventional schools or teachers.

In housing, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration has built more than 300, 000 units, more than 100,000 of which are for the poor while the rest are for employees with meager incomes.

The President said the country has a steady supply rice worth only P16 per kilo; sardines has remained at P8.50 since she became President, contributing greatly to the lowest inflation rate in the country’s economy in 20 years.

She said she has distributed more than 500, 00 hectares of land under the agrarian reform.

The Chief Executive said the economy grew by 4.4 per cent GNP last year and 5.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year. Foreign investments, she reported, rose 26 per cent compared to the same period last year.

"They will grow faster when we reduce business costs by providing basic infrastructure: roads, transport and a more efficient and rationalized power sector," she said.

She proudly reported that basic transport fare has not increased since her first SONA. She had set up the nautical highway to reduce transport costs from Mindanao to Luzon.

From having the second most expensive power in Asia-Pacific, the Philippines now rank seventh, according to the President. Interest rates, she added, continue to go down.

She said that with full financial support from the government, the registration, counting and transmission of votes in the May 2004 election would be completely computerized.

In geopolitics, President Macapagal-Arroyo said: "Our country has come much closer to re-attaining its strategic importance in geopolitics as an active and respected voice in international affairs. The Filipino is now recognized as a truly global worker, both at home and aboard. Increasingly, the Philippines is being recognized as an ideal site for industrial operations requiring an English-educated work force."

She said poverty is now being slowly licked.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today said there will be no letup in her administration’s intensified campaign against illegal drugs, vowing to bring the anti-drug war to every household in the country, if necessary.

In her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered this afternoon before a joint session of Congress, the President said the drug problem has endangered the lives and the future of some one million Filipinos.

The President also said there will be no moratorium on the death penalty for big fish in the illegal drugs trade.

But the President assured the nation that on other matters, she remains pro-life. "I will veto any bill that would smuggle abortion into it," she said.

The President said she will bring the fight against illegal drugs to every province, every town and every barangay, every community in the country.

"This is one fight I am taking everywhere, if we have to knock on every door," the President said.

She said the government will cripple the operations of the notorious drug lords and their "padrinos" who are in the corridors of power.

"Pipigain natin ang supply sa kalye sa paraang kahit ang masasalapi ay mahihirapang sustentohan ang kanilang bisyo (We will cut off the street supply of drugs so that even the rich could not afford to maintain their vices)," the President said.

The President said the government would launch a stepped-up campaign to educate the people, especially the students, on the dangers of drug abuse and would rehabilitate drug users and see to it that they would not become drug dependents again.

The President reported that during the past five weeks after she ordered an intensified anti-drug campaign, some P8 billion worth of illegal drugs have been seized by police authorities, a number of big shabu factories raided, and some of the big-time drug lords and traders now put behind bars.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today formally asked Congress to enact two vital legislations that would speed up countryside development and compensate thousands of victims of human rights abuses during the Marcos regime.

In her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) that she delivered this afternoon before a joint session of Congress, the President said there is now a need to pass a law that would allow small farmers, especially the beneficiaries of the land reform law, to use their farmlands as collaterals for agricultural loans.

The President said that with easy credit, the land reform beneficiaries could increase the productivity of their newly acquired lands and therefore improve their lives.

She also asked Congress to pass a legislation that would allocate P8 billion from the recovered Marcos ill-gotten wealth as compensation for human rights victims during the martial law years.

The President congratulated the Supreme Court and the Sandiganbayan for restoring to the government huge sums of money that rightfully belong to the Filipino people.

"I congratulate the Supreme Court for finally granting what has taken much too long to materialize: authoring the allocation and use of private loot for laudable public purposes," the President said.

She said the bulk of the recovered ill-gotten money amounting to P38 billion would be used to fully implement the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

On the coconut levy, which the Sandiganbayan has decreed as public funds, the President said this would be primarily used to improve the lives of the coconut farmers.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today paid tribute to Filipino workers, both here and abroad, for having an unbeatable comparative advantage because of their English-language education, advanced skills and "a uniquely-caring nature."

"The Filipino is now recognized as a truly global worker, both at home and abroad," the President said in her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered this afternoon before a joint session of Congress at the Batasang Pambansa.

The President said that there are now more than eight million Filipinos who live and work abroad, in jobs where they have excelled and have competitive advantage over other foreign workers.

According to the President, the Filipino will work anywhere because he is not afraid, as she particularly mentioned the victory of Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao over his Mexican opponent in their fight in Los Angeles City Sunday.

"Given the chance to compete, he will take it and he will win," the President said.

The President said that it is only fitting that the overseas Filipinos be given the chance to vote in the elections.

"If these bodies work very fast and make the recommendations and she implements them, then foreign investors will come back again," Jose Concepcion, a barangay chairman in Forbes Park, Makati City, said after the President delivered her State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasan session hall in Quezon City.

He said the creation of the three commissions means the President is determined to address graft and corruption "that is prevailing in the PNP and in certain sectors of the military."

""I think she did a good presentation. She appealed to the people that she cannot do it alone, we’re all in this together, and that is a good effort," he said.

He said what the President presented in her SONA were all valid.

"All the accomplishments she presented were all valid accomplishments. We’re very hopeful the system will improve," he said.

He said there is no problem in the local economy despite the mutiny staged by more than 200 soldiers the other day.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced in her third State of the Nation Address (SONA) today that the country has a lower power rate now compared to other countries in the Asia-Pacific and the consumers still could expect a reduction in their electric bills in the next few years.

The President said that in Metro Manila, a consumer using 100 kilowatts now pays only P423.20 compared to the P526.48 last May, a drop of over P100 or 20 percent.

She said this reduction in power rates benefits the almost 2-million households in Metro Manila who gained from the lifeline rate program of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

She said another 119 electric cooperative franchise areas will also soon reduce their rates under the loan condonation program of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act that Congress has passed.

"That is why, believe me when I say that, from having the second most expensive power in Asia-Pacific, we now rank seventh," she said.

The President, however, said the country would still need 6,000 megawatts of additional power over the next 10 years.

"That is why we need to pass the Transco Bill to maintain a favorable ranking as we take on this added capacity," she said.

She also reported that the government has already provided electricity to more than 1,500 barangays throughout the country.

Energy Secretary Vicente S. Perez, Jr. said this is one of the biggest accomplishments under the term of President Macapagal-Arroyo to help combat poverty in the countryside.

The third State of the Nation Address of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the opening of the third regular session of the 12^th Congress was applauded at least 79 times by the lawmakers and a jampack crowd of government officials, business leaders, members of the diplomatic corps and ordinary citizens at the gallery.

Last year, her State of the Nation Address was interrupted by applause for only 75 times.

The most applauded portions of the President SONA, which she delivered in 45 minutes, was when she declared that there will be no moratorium on the death penalty for all drug lords; when she asked the Congress to allocate P8 billion for victims of human rights violations during martial law; when she revealed the series of surprise visit she made to government offices to find out who were working or sleeping on the job; and when she announced the full computerization of the 2004 elections.

When House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. formally called out her name to take the speaker’s stand to deliver her SONA, the crowd stood up and, for three minutes, remained standing and applauding.

The President got her first long applause when she warned all the big fish in the illegal drugs trades that they faced the death penalty and, in the next breath, declared she was pro-life and would veto any bill that will seek to legalize abortion.

The most applauded part of the President’s speech was when she mentioned her series of surprise visit to the government offices.

The audience reacted positively and were obviously touched when the President said she would do everything for the future of the youth, particularly the generation of her granddaughter Mikaela.