ROXAS: PEOPLE NEED BELIEVABLE, NOT MAKE-BELIEVE, SONA
TO GMA: DON'T BOTCH CHANCE TO TELL THE PEOPLE THE REAL SCORE

Senator Mar Roxas today said the President should not miss the opportunity to present to the people the real score on the ongoing crisis and a doable plan to take the country out of the "emergency room" when she delivers her State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday.

"Now that we're in crisis, our people deserve to hear a believable SONA, not a make-believe story," he stressed.

"We don't need another litany of achievements and new promises. We can't have another SONA that only repackages existing projects under new names. We must move away from the political rhetoric of 'Beat the Odds,' 'Super-Regions,' 'Noah's Ark' or 'Katas ng VAT'--and move in on concrete solutions to alleviate the increasing pains of the needy," he said.

"Most of our people now are inclined to dismiss the upcoming SONA as a self-serving political show, or simply just tuning out because the past SONAs have been largely irrelevant to their lives. What they want to hear and see is an honest statement on the situation, an honest-to-goodness inventory of our resources and capabilities, and a clear road out of the deepening crisis," he added.

The Liberal Party President said the President must turn away from the "business-as-usual" attitude and adopt the manner of an emergency room specialist determined to save a victim in severe distress.

"Ang pinakamahalaga ngayon, bago ang lahat: dapat makakain tayo. Itigil na ang lahat ng gastusing tumatagas lang palabas ng ating ekonomiya, at itutok iyon sa pagtulong sa mga magsasaka natin para makaani ng sapat na pagkain (Our priority now should be feeding our people before anything else.. Let's stop all spending that only seeps out of the economy, and focus resources to help farmers harvest enough food for our needs)," he added.

Roxas said that the government should provide additional fertilizers--three 50-kilogram bags of fertilizer per hectare to farmers--to help increase their yield by an additional 1.1 MT per hectare; with 1.4 million hectares of irrigated rice land nationwide, this is an additional 2-3 million MT of rice produced annually, enough to close the two-million MT rice shortage which NFA has to import worth P74 billion.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee of Trade and Commerce also said the government should stop squeezing a windfall out of already hard-up Filipinos. "Para sa 'Katas ng VAT' na ito, kailangan nilang pigain pa ang mga tsuper, mananakay, mamimili at maliliit na negosyante."

"Instead of stonewalling the people's call for immediate relief, what the government must do is to review and revamp the way they spend taxpayers' money. 'Useless spending' should be realigned to fund focused program to ensure rice and food self-sufficiency," he stressed.