Zubiri: SONA should present what the Administration has done in the last 5 years and Unveil their Plans for the Next 12 months in Office

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri sees the upcoming State of the Nation Address as a platform for President Rodrigo Duterte to highlight not only the legacy of his administration, but more importantly the plans for the next twelve months, particularly in handling the COVID-19 pandemic as the Delta variant continues to pose a threat.

Achievements

"The SONA will be a significant event as it would be the President's last State of the Nation Address for his term," Zubiri said. "Being his final address to the nation, it would be good for the President to highlight all the achievements of his administration from the last five years, including the legislative highlights, as well as achievements in infrastructure and other programs of the government."

"He can remind the people that during his term, he pushed for Universal Healthcare, Free College Education, peace in Mindanao through the Bangsamoro Organic Law, Ease of Doing Business, and bringing down corporate income tax through CREATE, among other legislative achievements," he added. "People would also like to hear about his Build, Build, Build Program, and how far have they completed these infrastructure projects."

Plans

"But what the people truly want to hear from our nation's leader is what he will do to jumpstart our economy and keep it afloat, and how he will try to help our country survive this dreadful pandemic in his last twelve months in office. The country would want to hear about what particular step we as a nation should take and what his administration will do to slow down COVID-19 and help our kababayans uplift themselves from hardship and poverty.

"This may be the last SONA, but there's still a long year ahead for the administration, and with the new COVID variants posing a threat there's still much to be done.

Legislative Agenda

"It would be good as well if the President can outline the remaining legislative priorities needed to help him end the pandemic and work toward poverty eradication.

"We in the Senate have committed to act on the passage of the Retail Trade Liberalization Act, the Public Services Act, and the Foreign Investments Act in the next two months, as well as other priority measures such as the Department of Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos, Modernization of the Bureau of Fire Protection, Rural Agricultural and Fisheries Development Financing Systems Act, Increasing Statutory Rape Age Act, Military and Uniformed Personnel Insurance Fund Act, Philippine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Act, the BARMM Extension Law and possibly Bayanihan 3, if there is availability of funds to help our distressed industries and workers avail of additional ayuda. These are just some of the many bills we have in the pipeline.

"We in the Senate have committed to work double time for the passage of these very important measures in spite of the lack of time--as realistically there are only two months of session left before the filing of candidacies, and then a month after that before the national campaign starts.

"The Senators will listen intently to the President's remaining legislative requests and discuss it amongst ourselves in a caucus that we traditionally call for the day after the SONA. Rest assured that as nationally elected public servants, we will heed the call of these times to act swiftly and judiciously during this pandemic crisis. Our people deserve nothing less."