​The President’s Speech

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 25 Jul 2016 by Romeo Bernardo

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President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) before a joint session of Congress this afternoon. The supposed 38-minute speech extended to over an hour as the President went off-script numerous times to explain his stance and policies. The style was very different from the finger pointing and statistics-filled speeches of his predecessor, focusing instead on concrete to-dos to address the urgent problems of the day. Based on this speech, we will be closely monitoring the substantive details of his proposal to cut income taxes for individuals and corporations, something that is widely welcomed but has to be done in the context of a comprehensive tax reform program to safeguard medium term financial sustainability. On the implementation side, our watch list includes how effectively he will be able to address Manila’s traffic congestion (we think the requested emergency powers from congress will be granted), whether agencies will be able to significantly cut processing time for permits and licenses as he instructed, and how quickly he can bring a number of identified infrastructure projects to construction. We are also keeping an eye on how he balances sectoral growth requirements with popular demands, e.g., in energy (backtracking on the country's international commitments on carbon limits in order to lower power rates and industrialization) and the environment (strongly backed his controversial DENR secretary on her stance against mining companies harming the environment), as well as how he handles peace talks with rebel groups, e.g., he declared a unilateral ceasefire with the communists even as there was silence on passage of a new a...