REACTION PAPER

SONA 2019

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte delivered his 4th State of the Nation Address
(SONA) yesterday, July 22, 2019, at Batasan Pambansa at Quezon City.
Supposedly, the SONA should have begun at exactly 4:00 in the afternoon. But
due to unfavorable weather condition, the presidential chopper was not able to
fly at the designated time and thus, the SONA began at 5:15 in the afternoon
which is more than an hour late as compared to the original plotted schedule. 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 government may be subtle about dealing with our supposed to be land
at the moment. This may be because of civic and state affairs purposes. Perhaps,
it is in the desire to establish a good state relationship with the other countries
that push our government to handle things this way. I hope that the government
will stand true to its words that if in case that other state will dare to touch and
exploit our lands, we will protect it at all cost.

The provision of the National Task Force to be headed by the President

himself will be established. This is for the vision of ending the long-term local
communist armed conflict in the country. No life should be offered just to express
their disapproval and discontentment on the existing laws and regulations.
Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a new era. An era where people could feel
safe not just inside their respective homes but also outside or within their
community or environment.

The current Barangay system that we have is intrinsically motivated to

move forward and to bring every Barangay into a peaceful and harmonious
community. but doing these changes as proposed by the government, the
Barangay workforce will all be extrinsically motivated. The reward that they get
in the form of salary will all the more encourage them to do their work the right
way. It makes ever Barangay official more responsible since they know that they
are also given a priority coming from the higher authorities.

ROTC has been established years back and was removed eventually. In the
present administration, the president asked the congress to approve the bill which
aims to reinstate the ROTC. As for the parents, they should begin seeing this as
something positive instead of a negative. Through this, they can teach their
children a lot of values plus enhanced discipline. I believe that if parents could
see it this way, they will be able to influence their children to perceive it as well
as something beneficial. For as long as schools and universities could implement
the ROTC properly without abuse of authority, everything is heading to the right
track. In the future, we can see morally upright and responsible citizens of our
country, beginning from their training of ROTC.

The “Build Build Build Progam” of the government which aims to provide
tons of opportunities for people to experience a better society through enough
and high-quality infrastructures. If it means reclaiming roads and creating new
ones, then the government is willing to do it. The provision of new expressways,
establishment of new train systems, and the implementation of the new public
transportation are just a few of the efforts being done by the government. In the
coming years, transportation will be faster and better as compared to the one
that we have in the present days.

A time taken in queuing is a time taken to work or to spend with family

members. With this belief, President Duterte urges the different government
agencies to simplify the different transactions and turn it into an electronic one.
He specifically mentioned the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Land
Registration Authority, Land Transportation Authority (LTO), PAGIBIG Fund, and
Social Security System (SSS) as some of the agencies that should adhere to such
changes. To fully make this work, people could resort to calling the Citizen’s
Complaint Hotline 8888 for them to report or air out public concerns. With the
technological advancement that we already have, we should make use of it and
take advantage of it to make our system attuned to the needs of the people.
Having these transactions into an electronic one or the digitalized version will
more or less lessen the time of queuing, processing, and releasing of documents.

The applicability of the death penalty is evident in the current times as

manifested by different heinous crimes going on across the country. With the
rape, killings, and other inhumane crimes going in left and right, the present
administration has realized that the only way to solve these is through the
reinstatement of the death penalty. This way, plunderers and criminals who
committed heinous crimes shall be punishable by death. Hopefully, if the same
law shall be applied in our land, it would serve as an eye-opener to people that
committing such crime is not a joke and it is something that must be dealt with
utmost severity and punishment.