STATE OF THE NATION PNoy vows to end corruption, picks Morales as Ombudsman

By SAMMY JULIAN, Manila News Bureau Chief FRANCO JOSE BAROÑA, Malacañang Reporter MANILA – “When the new Ombudsman takes office, we will have an honest-to-goodness anti-corruption office, not one that condones corruption and abuses in government,” said President Benigno Aquino III in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA). He announced the appointment of retired Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as the new Ombudsman. He expects that this year, “we will have filed our first major case against the corrupt and their accomplices. And these will be real cases, with strong evidence and clear testimonies which will lead to the punishment of the guilty.” Yet again, Aquino used wang-wang as a fitting symbol of change from the culture of corruption “not just in our streets, but even in our collective attitude.” “Over the years, the wang-wang had come to symbolize abuse of authority,” he said in his speech delivered entirely in Filipino. “It was routinely used by public officials to violate traffic laws, inconveniencing ordinary motorists – as if only the time of the powerful few, and no one else’s, mattered. Instead of behaving like public servants, they acted like kings.” “Do you want the corrupt held accountable? So do I. Do you want to see the end of wang-wang both on the streets and the sense of entitlement that has led to the abuse that we have lived with for so long? So do I,” the President said. It was Carpio-Morales who administered the oath of office to Aquino when he took over the presidency on June 30, 2010. Carpio-Morales will serve a full seven-year term at the Office of the Ombudsman. She takes over the post vacated by Merceditas Gutierrez who resigned after the House of Representatives impeached her. Aquino enumerated the strides his government made in various fields. Among these were reviving investor confidence, especially in the energy sector (140 companies are ready to participate in the exploration and strengthening of oil and natural gas resources); employing zero-based budgeting to end wasteful programs; and stopping excessive rice importation. He said his administration has to put an end to “the culture of entitlement, to wang-wang…along our roads, in government, in our society as a whole…This will bring confidence that will attract business; this will also ensure that the people’s money is put in its rightful place.” “Funding for infrastructure will secure the sustained growth of the economy, which will then give rise to jobs, and public service that guarantees that no one will be left behind. More opportunities for livelihood will be opened by tourism; the strengthening of our agriculture sector will ensure that every Filipino will have food on his table. We will invest on those who were once neglected. All this will create a cycle wherein all available jobs are filled, and where businesses flourish through the empowerment of their,” the President said. President Aquino also boasted that the once low credit ratings of the country have now been upgraded by Moody’s, Standard and Poors, Fitch, and Japan Credit Ratings Agency “in recognition of our prudent use of funds and creative financial management.” “These improved credit ratings mean lower interest on our debts. Our innovative fiscal approach has saved taxpayers P23 billion in the first four months of this year. This is enough to cover the P2.3 million conditional cash transfer beneficiaries for the entire year,” Aquino stressed. He pointed out that in the nine and a half years before he was elected into office, the country’s credit rating was upgraded only once, and downgraded six times by different credit ratings agencies. “Compare this to the four upgrades we have achieved in the single year we have been in office,” President Aquino declared. “This was no small feat, considering that the upgrades came after ratings agencies have grown considerably more conservative in their assessments, especially in the wake of criticism they received after the recent American financial crisis.” Aquino boasted of a lower self-rated hunger rating, which decreased to 15.1 percent this year from 20.5 percent last year, based on figures from pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS). Filipinos are now finding more jobs in the domestic market and slowly letting go of their ambition to find employment abroad, he said. Aquino also cited the 0.8 percentage-point drop in the unemployment rate in April from a high of eight percent in 2010. The President, however, was conscious that despite the gains in local employment, the government cannot afford to rest on its laurels. This problem is compounded by “jobs mismatch” that continues to hound local industries every year, Aquino said. Citing statistics from Philjobnet, Aquino said some 50,000 jobs remain unfilled every month because the skills of the graduates being produced each year do not match the requirements of the industries. To counter this, Aquino said he had called on the Department of Labor and Employment, the Commission on Higher Education, yhe Technical Skills and Development Authority and the Department of Education to address the skills mismatch./PN