THE CITIZEN ON MARS

I was thinking that I might just find this year’s State of The Nation’s Address by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as fairly eventful; now that ‘the impeachment season’ has just begun (13 retired generals had very recently joined the fray) and the charter change issue is coming to a boil. So I prepared myself a scalding mug of very black coffee this morning and turned on the television and found out that the President wasn’t “talking” till this afternoon and strangely enough, I felt a little bit relieved. Well, who says anyone desires to sit thru to what usually is a monotonous and droning stretch of policy talk and government speak—the economy that, the economy this; the education here, the education there, such and such thing. But you know, I’ve got this feeling that any Filipino individual has that duty to go through this torment…I mean presidential speech, like an obligation that is. And if you are a political blogger, or aiming to be one or even just pretending and trying hard to be one (like I do) , well the SONA is the place to be this afternoon.

So what ‘interesting’ things or new things could the President be possibly mumbling this afternoon (at 3:45 P.M. to be exact) that we have to suffer thru this? Oh, she can actually boast of a fairly growing economy (estimated to be just above 6% in GNP growth this year) and she should be expected to be making a big fuzz ‘bout this. This could actually dampen and cover-up for the not-so-nice things that have been happening in our country lately like the impeachment charges of mass election fraud that she had allegedly committed, the alarming rate of killings of radicals and activists in the country sides, the fertilizer scam, the Garcilliano caper, uncontrollable rise in fuel prices and of course, in the prices of basic commodities, and so on and so forth. The steep increase in OFW remittances (about 1.1 Billion pesos in April alone) could surely cover-up the kinks in her ministrations of our government and let us just hope we won’t be swamped over with numbers by the time she uttered the last word on what could be a speech also full of venomous and vile remarks targeted towards those who aim to bring her down.

And I bet my house (if I had any) that she’d be talking about these “super-regions” that she had envisioned our poor nation to have and to hold; harking about it like its some kind of a chasm that could turn this country into a First World country in 20 years. I wonder if these ’new regions’ need more governors and more and more congressmen; aren’t we so full of them already? But I guess we just have to sit tight and fasten our seat belts and find out for ourselves what super-regions mean and hope that it won’t be just hot-air because that could mean super-typhoons instead. That could be real bad. Super-regions by the way reminds me of such similar things or individuals like Superman, Super Girl, Super Friends and maybe perhaps we’d be better off reading DC Comics than daydreaming about Super Regions that could finally come and rescue us from our misery. Meanwhile, in the Hall of Justice…