Prof. Carl Kelvin Sapio
STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS 2015: A SYNOPSIS, CRITICAL ANALYSIS and REACTION By: Ma. Luisa Quilla Rendado
The Fifth State of the Nation Address, SONA 2014, was successfully delivered on Monday, July 28, 2014, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City. The President's second to the last SONA marked his fourth year in presidency, earning several rounds of applause from Senators, Congressmen, government officials, local and international media and few celebrities in the country. This year's SONA had no published theme, but the remarkable message he mentioned at the end of his speech was, as we quoted from the slain senator Ninoy Aquino, “The Filipino is worth dying for.”, “The Filipino is worth living for living for.”, "and The Filipino is definitely worth fighting for."
In His Excellency’s speech, PNoy discussed matters about our country’s economy, defenses, public works, education, etc. He also presented his achievements and outlined his priorities for this year and presented videos to prove his assertions.
PNoy began his speech by mentioning the controversial Disbursement Accelaration Program (DAP) which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. He acknowledged the benefits of the mechanism which helped 220,000 students of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to the tune of P1.6 billion DAP funds. He then showed two video testimonials of those who benefitted from TESDA scholarships.
His speech was very inclusive—comprising of his accomplishments of his four years of administration in political as well as economic aspects and praises for public servants and government agencies and departments for the job well done. The address also enumerated the achievements of his administration over the past year, which includes good economic performance, increased budget in infrastructure, success of Public-Private Partnerships, calamity efforts, among