NOW that opposition politicians and skeptical commentators are mostly done naysaying President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) over a week ago, time for the hard and more important part: implementing and risk-managing programs and projects for the nation’s benefit.
That’s what this writer did for eight years as undersecretary of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) in 2001 and secretary to the Cabinet from 2002 to 2008. The work actually began when the SONA was being written, with department and agency heads proposing doable, timebound initiatives for inclusion.
Whatever couldn’t be done in good time with available resources was out, reducing implementation risk from the start. Thus, in her first SONA in 2001, then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo could realistically propose 55 concrete, specific undertakings with targets and deadlines, for which the House of Representatives oversight committee assessed 78-percent fulfillment a year later.
After lining up achievable plans, the Cabinet secretariat unit of the PMS did constant SONA monitoring and troubleshooting, getting reports and meeting agencies every couple of weeks or months, depending on the pace of implementation. Potential and actual problems were addressed early, with regular updates to the president. That avoids shocks like ghost projects discovered after months or years.
Thus, Cabinet secretaries and other agency heads were kept on their toes, and slippage reduced — or else. Early in her presidency, the economic planning chief resigned after being told in Cabinet meetings that projects his officials assured him were on track, suffered significant delays, based on PMS field validation.
In her last two years, Arroyo created a mega-projects task force under the PMS head and including implementing agencies. Plus, representatives of business, media, the Church and other leading sectors, to raise and address concerns and issues that could or did arise from the undertakings.
Watch the world
Looking at last month’s SONA, this article highlights several initiatives where steps are needed to enhance outcomes and reduce potential problems. Especially the latter: Risks are often the least considered in advocating and implementing grand plans.
Take President Marcos’ widely cheered tax break, where politicians see popular giveaways for voters, but business leaders worry about fiscal impact. Crucially, besides offsetting tax reductions, fiscal planners should factor in the growing global fear that inflation and interest rates will keep rising and could spike due to war, energy crisis and debt woes in the United States.
Then spooked global capital will rush to safety — and away from countries seen as fiscally challenged. If world economic debacles erupt, let’s not be in the shaky camp with hefty budget deficits due to higher spending and lower revenues in the quest for higher approval ratings.
President Marcos rightly pushed for completing agrarian reform before his mid-2028 exit. But zeroing the ranks of landless farmers is just the easy part of land distribution. Expanding agricultural support, financing and insurance to match the expanded ranks of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) are equally crucial, so President Marcos is wise to also highlight those imperatives as part of agrarian programs, so ARBs don’t end up losing the farm for lack of farming essentials.
Agricultural support is even more crucial with El Niño weather due to worsen with adverse impact on farming. “El Niño continues to intensify steadily and is expected to dominate global climate patterns in the August-October 2026 season, increasing the likelihood of above-normal temperatures across much of the world and driving significant shifts in rainfall patterns,” warns the World Meteorological Organization.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific adds: “In countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor‑Leste, strong El Niño events have repeatedly brought drought, forest fires, agricultural losses and water stress... risk intensity is highest where exposure overlaps with underlying vulnerabilities caused by poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, as well as heavy dependence on subsistence farming.”
Further on El Niño, even more vulnerable than farmers are poor families sure to go hungry if drought and floods cause food scarcity and inflation, already looming with the global fertilizer and fuel crisis due to the squeeze on Gulf exports with the closed Strait of Hormuz. Hence, even as President Marcos envisions solar energy for homes, far more urgent are expanding backyard food production, which is both more urgently needed and far less technically and financially challenging than renewable energy.
Most endangered by costlier or scarcer food are indigent gestating, and nursing mothers and their infants in the first 1,000 days since conception — the critical period when stunting of body and mind restricts intellectual capacity for life. Both national and local governments as well as nongovernment entities must gear up for increased food aid to mothers and infants if food prices surge due to El Niño.
Leverage our allies
Our Aug. 2 column already highlighted another need made more urgent by El Niño — building more infrastructure to safeguard calamity-prone communities, harnessing both public and private sector management and resources. A third global risk factor besides weather and economic malaise to prepare for are threats of a wider war in Europe and the Middle East threatening overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
There is much media and political attention these days over allies supporting the Philippines in maritime frictions with China and in the much-hyped Pax Silica artificial intelligence and information technology investment zone in New Clark City. All very fine, but there is a potentially more pressing and indeed life-and-death worry where we would need rapid allied support: evacuation of OFWs.
While Western and Japanese support in the West Philippine Sea and Pax Silica are good, it would be lifesaving to have commitments for transporting OFWs if war widens in Europe and West Asia. Even one jumbo jet and one ship pledged by each ally would be greatly reassuring to the well over 2 million OFWs across the two regions.
In sum, as we advance the SONA agenda, we must always keep an eye on the world and how it complicates matters here at home.
