Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would report again on the state of the nation. As in her past 5 addresses she is expected to brag about her government’s one-year achievements on programs and policies to make the country more worthy for foreign credit and investment and her legislative agenda in pursuance of this direction. This tract also interests local big land and capital owning classes.

Expectedly, GMA will boast on the following—increase in government revenues; the huge remittances of overseas Filipino contract workers; surplus in balance of payments (BoP); growth in gross international reserves (GIR); more than 5% growth rate in gross national production (GNP); better credit-risk rating of the country; campaign against corruption; the neutralization of insurgents, military rebels and destabilizers and that there will be elections in 2007. Probably she would not miss mentioning Israel’s war in Lebanon, her concern for Filipinos working there and the effects of the war on world crude oil prices. She would report on her latest trip to Libya and the assurance of oil supplies to the Philippines.

Most likely she would have the gall to say that the growth in government revenues justifies the increase in value-added tax (VAT). But she would not talk about the effects of VAT on the people. She would congratulate multi-national corporations for the growth in their profits but would not mention the real income of Filipinos is falling.

She would praise the overseas Filipino contract workers’; their remittances contributed to the BoP surplus, increase in GIR and the GNP growth rate. But she would not reveal that the biggest factor to these increases is the country’s growing external debt. She would not tell that the GIR is committed to debt and import payments and as guarantee to foreign investments in the country.

Indeed the remittance of OFWs is growing but this is due to their increasing numbers not in increases in their wages and salaries. GMA would not admit that the increase in number of OFWs corresponds to the increasing external debt and import payments of the country. Also, she would not relate the increase in number of OFWs to the increasing, though unreported, cases of death and abuse, imprisonment, vagrancy and joblessness of overseas Filipinos.

Despite these and the tightening of immigration laws in many countries, including the US, the wars in Iraq and now again in Lebanon and other risks, the exodus of the country’s human reserves continues. And GMA would still boast on her continuing program of sending out an average of 1 million Filipinos a year since 2001. Export of cheap Filipino labor is at the core of GMA regime’s job creation program. She will not tell however that the hard dollar earnings OFWs are cover for the debt and import payments.

The attraction of foreign investors to the country is the other core component of the regime’s job-creation program. In her 2004 and 2005 SONAs, GMA outlined the latest attractions to foreign investors. Among these are rights given to foreigners to own and operate mines and communication and transportation facilities and therefore the land where the mines are or where the transportation and communication facilities stand. But the bigger slice of investments is short-term or portfolio, which is guaranteed by the relatively high interest rates set by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the high interest rates demanded by international banks on government bonds that are sold in the international capital market. Foreign investments come not to principally create jobs but to draw superprofits from the country! Short-term or portfolio investments do not create jobs at all. Foreign direct investments do need labor, but they demand it cheap and repressed.

The over-all effects on the Filipino people of the tract the GMA regime is pursuing is hellish. The terms that are imposed principally by the US through its dominated IMF-WB and international creditors, which the regime subserviently implements, are making the lives of the great majority of Filipinos more and more miserable. To counter the unrest and restiveness of the masses, the GMA regime is systematically curtailing human, civil and democratic rights of the people. This is to the extent of abolishing the right to live meaningfully of those who justly, consciously and persistently struggle for the interests of the people.

To struggle is just; persist in struggle!

Let the real state of the nation that GMA would not speak of be the compelling reason to struggle against the illegitimate GMA regime and the anti-democratic and anti-nationalist ruling system that it promotes.

The overwhelming majority of the people are scrimping on less than half of the nation’s economy while a few elite feast on over 50% of the whole. Even repackaged government data cannot hide realities. As of 2003, the poorest 20% of the population share only 4.7% of the total national income and consumption. The richest 20% feast on 53.3% of the total income and consumption. The remaining 42% of the national income and consumption is shared by 60% of the population. In short, 80% of the population nibbles on 46.7% of the national income and consumption.

The country’s population is about 85.5 million as of 2005. However edited, government figures show that as of 2003, Filipinos who are extremely poor or below subsistence food threshold comprise 13.8% of the population. In absolute numbers, 12 million individuals or 2.4 million families suffer from extreme hunger! Subsistence food threshold was set at P8,134 per person per year or P678 per month or P22.96 a day. In family context, this is P3,389 a month or P112.96 for a family of 5 members per day. What food can a family of five members buy with P112.96 a day? Or can a person buy with P22.60 a day?

Filipinos living below the income-poverty threshold comprise 30.4% of the population or 26 million individuals or 5.2 million families in 2003. Income poverty threshold was set at P12,267 per individual per year or P5,111 a month for a family of 5 members or P1,022.25 per individual per month or P34.07 per person or P170 per family per day. What kind of life does a family have with P170 or does a person have with P34.07 a day?

This situation of poverty and hunger was 2 years before the expanded value-added tax (VAT) was raised from 10% to 12%. VAT on top of continued increases in prices of goods and services, which is principally due to government deregulation on prices of oil products sold here by big international oil cartel, is further reducing real income of the people. In 2 years time Filipinos living in sub-human conditions have increased several times!

The GMA regime has sown a climate of white terror! Its recent declaration of “all-out war” against the “left” is its confirmation of heightened extra-judicial killings of legal mass leaders and activists and journalists who risk lives to uphold and defend the legitimate demands and interests of the people. From 2001 until presently, over 600 mass leaders and activists and scores of journalists have been killed extra-judicially. Meanwhile high military and government officials, who commit high level economic plunder and fraud, are scot-free or are accorded the opportunity to defend their selves in court or freely leave the country.

The GMA regime relies on the AFP and PNP and the support of the US to remain in power. But though the command structures of the AFP and the PNP are operating, the officers are not united behind their commander-in-chief. Several field commanders and their men participated in series of rebellious actions in pursuit of reforms. A few leaders have been arrested but many are still at large or are not identified.

To unify the military and police, the GMA regime with US backing is harping on anti-communist, anti-terrorist, anti-destabilization line even as it also pursues to arrest and neutralize alleged rebels inside the AFP and PNP. Military and police officers and personnel are wooed with promises like housing projects even as retired officers and their families are forcibly evicted from military housing units in Fort Bonifacio, Camp Aquino and elsewhere. Nonetheless, lower ranking officers and men complain they cannot afford the high fees for the housing units. Furthermore, despite the big budgets for the AFP and PNP, they will continue to bear low and delayed salaries, short supplies, etc.

The war to annihilate the “left” is aimed at barring the people from protesting their plight. This is the real response of the regime to the ever-worsening economic crisis. The regime is employing extra-judicial killer death squads to complement “legal” restrictions on freedoms of assembly, association, speech and press and to dissent and redress of grievances.

The regime is closing all legal avenues for the people to seek change as it also employs deception to draw the attention of the people away from their destitution or to scuttle their plans of action. Workers’ right to job security, to living wage, to collectively bargain and to strike are done away with by contractualization and additional “legal” constraints and conditionalities. The peasants’ right to till farms of viable size and to enjoy the fruits of their labor is denied by high price of redemption of the land and by high cost of farming. On the other hand big private landholders are free to convert their lands to export crop production or to other uses that are more favorable for real-estate speculation. Commercialization has made education the privilege of those who can afford the high cost. But capital liberalization has turned into nightmare the dreams of thousands of parents who have invested their hard savings in educational plans for their children. The growing mass of unemployed and under-employed are left to eke-out their daily grind in doing odd jobs or are forced into anti-social activities or fall victims of illegal job recruiters.

We Filipinos are easy to laughter and joke and is said to have high threshold for pain and suffering. This is one thing that could be positive in bearing with burdened living or the sacrifices of fighting for better life. But genuine joy could only come when freedom-- from exploitation and oppression, from want and hunger, from joblessness and unproductiveness, from ignorance and illiteracy, from malnutrition and diseases, in short, from dehumanizing situations created by a few ruling classes-- is won by the people, to last many lifetimes until forever. The freedom to defend and uphold life and to decide and act to change the severely worsened state of the nation is what we have and cannot lose. There is no hope for the next generations if the unjust socio-economic order is not changed to one that is free, just, democratic and progressive. We should pursue this direction by removing a big and immediate obstacle, the illegitimate and immoral GMA regime. We rely on the justness of the cause and on our mass of millions to achieve these aspirations.