This is a reaction to the news articles titled “No clear GMA goodbye” and “She is longest burning president.” (Inquirer, 7/28/09) Essentially, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s last State of the Nation Address (SONA) was nothing but a compendium of lies, half-truths and attacks on her critics. She did not even mention anything really beneficial to the Filipino people, the passage of the so-called Cheaper Medicines Act notwithstanding.

In fact her economic figures do not even correspond with those of other economists and analysts who are also keeping a tab on our economy. One of them is Peter Wallace, who said that Gloria’s figures do not jibe with his.

As for her political plans, Gloria remains coy and left the possibility of her running for a seat in Congress as an open question. On martial rule and the state of emergency, she said that she never declared martial rule and only used the state of emergency to quell a coup d’ etat; in reality we are already under one, albeit undeclared. This is evident in the protest rallies and gatherings violently dispersed by the police, in the thousands of activists, Arroyo critics and journalists who have been abducted, tortured or killed or forcibly disappeared.

And now Gloria has used the SONA to attack her critics who continually expose the corruption and anomalous transactions of her regime. Instead of doing all she can to improve the lives of Filipinos where it really matters—like giving them access to free education, opening windows of opportunities for decent paying jobs, and ensuring genuine peace—she opted to sow more division. She is not saying goodbye, she is preparing for a campaign.

What is clear though is that everyone, even her allies, want her out of power after 2010. No one in our history is so reviled (except Ferdinand Marcos, perhaps) that Filipinos are really itching to see her out of their lives.

—TESSA LOPEZ,
Public Information Officer,
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Bikol
(BAYAN-Bikol),
Brgy.17, Legazpi City, Albay