Former student gives Arroyo passing grade

On a scale of one to ten, President Arroyo scored a passing grade of 7.8 on fulfilling the commitments she made in last year’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), Rep. Joey Salceda (Lakas, 3rd district of Albay) said yesterday.

Salceda, chairman of the House oversight committee on the commitments made by the President in her address in 2002, gave his former economics mentor a passing grade in a briefing he conducted yesterday at Malacañang, where he gave out copies of his committee’s preliminary findings on the SONA 2002 accomplishments.

Salceda himself was a straight A student in economics under Mrs. Arroyo at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Mrs. Arroyo had launched her vision of a Strong Republic in last year’s SONA.

Salceda believes that despite her mere passing mark, Mrs. Arroyo remains the most viable candidate of the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrat (Lakas-CMD) party for the 2004 presidential elections.

Salceda echoed his partymates’ earlier statements for Mrs. Arroyo to reconsider her Dec. 30 declaration not to run in the 2004 elections. He was the former chief of staff of presidential hopeful Raul Roco when Roco was a congressman.

The report given out by Salceda’s committee discussed in detail the Arroyo administration’s accomplishments vis-à-vis the targets she set in the 2002 SONA, covering the period from July 2002 to June this year.

"On the whole, we are satisfied with the effort and the performance of the President and her team on the 2002 SONA commitment," the report said.

The Salceda committee report was released to Palace reporters along with a copy of a technical report prepared by the Presidential Management Staff, which monitors the SONA accomplishments as against targets set by the President.

Salceda said he based the rating of the President’s performance in office on 32 specific targets monitored by his committee, targets she herself had set. The committee graded 21 of these targets with "substantial positive compliance," while she had "underperformances" on the other 11 targets.

Presidential demerits

The Salceda committee gave Mrs. Arroyo "minuses" in four of the 11 targets, since these targets — mostly related to peace and order — were "unmet."

The President had failed to meet these four targets, which she promised to fulfill in her 2002 SONA: the release of a P1 billion budget for the modernization of the Philippine National Police; elimination of the Abu Sayyaf; apprehension of the bulk of the kidnap for ransom syndicates; and the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The Salceda committee also gave Mrs. Arroyo "minus" marks in the following areas: reduced prices of medicines; construction of additional lines for the mass transport systems and finish three lines in 2004; reduction of the power rate; P500 million OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) fund for Mindanao; construction of a school building in every barangay for 2004; 1:1 ratio of textbook to student for priority subjects for grades one to four and 1st and 2nd year high school; computerization of electoral processes; and good governance to be carried out by the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission.

"The key target of the 2002 SONA is a Strong Republic but this is difficult to quantify and, therefore, less receptive to precise measurement," the Salceda committee said in its report.

The committee added that "a Strong Republic also needs time to unfold — it requires a long gestation period and a framework of outcomes for its validation."

Of the 32 targets in the 2002 SONA, the Salceda committee noted that there were 18 "continuing" performance areas, of which 15 merited a "positive" rating while three have a "negative" rating.

Some of the "continuing" targets cited by the President’s 2002 SONA are the P20 billion annual budget for the Agricultural and Fishery Modernization Fund; one million new jobs in four years; distribution of 100,000 hectares of agricultural lands and another 100,000 hectares of public lands; provision of 80,000 housing units to workers and 70,000 housing units for the urban poor.

Meanwhile, various militant groups gave Mrs. Arroyo a -5 rating for failing to fulfill the promises she made in her 2002 SONA.

They plan to stage a nationwide protest when the President delivers her latest SONA on July 28, and expect to have 20,000 protesters march to the Congress building.

The nine militant groups, led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), also urged the President to "run," not for the presidential race, but "away from Malacañang, away from the country."

Dani Beltran, secretary general of the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP), said that the President "delivers to us a very miserable state of our people’s rights."

Bayan’s Teddy Casiño, for his part, said Mrs. Arroyo failed to deliver on her promise of "creation of jobs, elimination of graft, peace and order, and (reduced) cost of power." – With Pamela Samia