JEBONE, EINSTEIN WEBSTER J.

AN ASSESSMENT ON SONA 2017 OF PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE

Its almost a year since the citizen of the Philippines voted for the next leader that they want to. A
leader that will bring huge change in the country and a leader that could provide the basic services to the
public. President Rodrigo Duterte is one of the most well-known personalities during his term as a Mayor of
Davao, located in the Mindanao Island. From his charisma and aggressive plans to eradicate the corruption
in the government and eliminate those drug personalities that brings a destructive effect to the youth, the
16 million who voted for him notice and conclude that this type of leadership could help them in attaining
their needs as well to improve the means of living of every people in the Philippines. Economic plans are
one of the most essential sector that the government needs to assure because its primarily comprises the
futuristic demands and approach on how we sustain the needs of the people through the reliable and
strategic policies that encompasses programs for employment increase, attracting investors businesses to
establish within the state jurisdiction, and lastly, maintain the resources that we have for the present
generation and for the future purposes.

The 2nd State of the Nation Address of President Rodrigo Duterte might be one of the most
controversial in a sense that there are inclusive plans of the President is not being expected by some
analyst in the country. In relation to the significance of Economic Plan that I have stated above, one of the
major topic that the President stated on his SONA was the Improvement of Sea Connectivity and Land
Transportation. As we can see in our everyday lives, traffic is the number one enemy of the public. In line
with this reason, billions of money was losses due to wasting of time in just travelling from your home to
your workplace. EDSA is the best example where traffic took place. A lot of employees get mad every
moment they will enter EDSA and the most unexpected thing that they experienced is that, the most
efficient mode of Transportation within the Metro which is the Manila Rail Transit or MRT could not
functioned well due to its technical problems and could no longer accommodate passengers prior to the
given time which a regular train may provide to its customers. However, this matter wasnt hear in the latest
SONA of the President, instead he focuses on the external considerations like the ASEAN program on Ro-
Ro Shipping within our neighbor countries in Southeast Asian region. Half part of me agreed with this
condition because it will clearly help our fellow countrymen in shipping their goods to our neighbor countries
and could attract more employment however, on the left side of reality there is a huge difference for those
people who wasnt able to avail the food production made by our own Filipinos. Its important to take
considerations that every time we dealt to an agreement with our international competitors, we should fix
first the common problem in the ground meaning, we need to provide a framework or policy that every
citizen will understand and utilize their skill in any areas that they want and by that reason, the government
will determine the best practices that the people need to have. Another pressing issue that arises months
ago was the illegal parking of some cars within the Quezon City main roads that cause an additional traffic
problem for the commuters. In a holistic approach, private cars must be prohibited for those people who
dont have the capacity to provide their personal parking lots; furthermore establishing your houses near a
main road is a pathetic thinking because you just merely added a big problem to a bigger problem that even
the owner will experience. Owning a private car is good but at the same time, the owner must think where
he will going to park his car. The Local Government Units has discretion in this matter because on their
JEBONE, EINSTEIN WEBSTER J.

jurisdiction took place this kind of problem. There must be a monitoring officer to assure that the owners of
some cars who clearly disengaged with the ordinance given by the LGU need to be punished, as well there
would be a database provided by the LGUs in determining those owners who have their own personal
parking where their cars took place. Another well-known mode of transportation is the Philippine National
Railway Transit which is the ordinary mode of LRT/MRT. The pressing issue in this matter is that the
services provided by the PNR was stuck that some oldies experiencing before which means it remains old
and could not even suffice the services needed by the passengers. The Duterte Administration wants to
extend the terminal locations of PNR from Laguna to some part of Luzon like Bulacan and Pampanga. The
last terminal of PNR for now is located in Tutuban which is part of Manila. There are several issues that
needs to be drawn and come up with a solution in regards with the extension of the said program; (1) the
equipments needed must be in accordance with the safety of the people; (2) those people who lived near
the railways of PNR; and lastly, (3) the budget they will choose might get from its customers. As far as we
can see, there are numerous adjustments that needs to be accomplish first and primarily these are the
people who currently lived near the railways of PNR. These people should bw inform properly by their
respective LGUs but their respective LGUs should have a back up plan if these people will agreed to move
to another place to continue their living. However, a big problem may arise because there are places which
not able to accomodate huge number of people and the government must assure that these people will
have their home. Second thing is that the burden of those consumers who will avail the services of PNR.
It's normal to have an additional fee in improving the services of PNR however, in times of necessity what
was the sense of budget alloted in improving their services? And the public deserves the initial explanation
to this, not just simply explaining the fact that this is also for their safety.

In conclusion, the President really shows his capacity to improve the living of his fellow countrymen. But he
needs to address first the concern of the locals rather that paying too much attention on international affairs
and combating his personal enemy in the government. Inclusive planning is very important and it is
necessary for the government to know the pulso of many and not relying on trolls in Facebook which is
barberic in a sense because of their one-sided excuses. We should be vigilant in every policy that the
government presented to us then with that we could lay down to our conclusions and see that if every
individual could benefit on every actions made by the government.