Ampatuans delaying
trial - FFFJ lawyer

Male reporters & the gender lens

Posted by: Jaemark Tordecilla | August 15, 2010 at 9:12 am
Filed under: General, Media

IT came as a bit of a surprise when I received my latest assignment from my editors: I was to cover the launch of the 3rd edition of the Gender and Development Glossary of the international newswire Inter Press Service (IPS). The book, I was told, is supposed to be a tool to help reporters navigate the “sometimes tricky terrain of gender, media, and development.”

I’m one of only two male members of the PCIJ’s eight-person editorial staff; assignments like this usually go to one of the women in the office. My editors joked that it was a penalty for me for writing for FHM — I had previously contributed pieces about sports and pop music for the website of the men’s magazine, which had been accused by feminist groups of promoting the objectification of women.

Well, at least I think my editors were kidding. Nevertheless, I was excited. After all, I had never covered an event on gender awareness before. So last August 10, the launch date, I showed up at the venue…where there was another surprise waiting for me: in a room full of journalists, academics, and advocates, I was the only male member of the audience. The only other male person in the room was University of the Philippines College of Social Sciences and Philosophy dean Michael L. Tan, who was part of the panel. Perhaps it wasn’t just at the PCIJ where male reporters are rarely sent to cover events on gender-related issues (in large part because it has always been a female-dominated organization).

A guide for a tricky terrain

IPS Asia-Pacific Director Johanna Son opened the event by talking about the glossary, which was developed through “the lens of the media,” as a guide for journalists and writers to key terms in gender and development, including not just their meanings, but also their nuances. She said that while media, whether mainstream or alternative, generally accept that news content and language must be gender-sensitive, many people are still not too aware of how loaded some terms are. She noted that few stylebooks contain gender- or women-related items that would help reporters navigate the “sometimes tricky terrain of gender, media, and development.”

IPS Asia Pacific Director Johanna Son

“Media are both part of the problem and part of the solution,” said Son. She acknowledged that some newsrooms are hard-headed, and recounted how she has encountered cases where terms such as “sex” and “feminism” are considered bad words.

But the pendulum swings the other way,  too, with media going overboard on efforts to be perceived as gender-sensitive. “It’s the ‘chair conundrum,’” said Son, describing the confusion over whether “chairman,” “chairwoman,” “chairperson,” or simply, “chair,” is the most gender-sensitive term. “NGO language” and flag-waving terms don’t work, she said, and neither do boring headlines that contain jargon that would put off the reader.

Gender-sensitivity, she said, is an editorial value that must be pursued, just like accuracy, balance, and having a diversity of voices. “A gender-sensitive story is a better-told story,” said Son, saying that gender-awareness would allow a reporter to find subtle, unacknowledged angles, due to how different genders often have different perspectives and encounter different circumstances, leading to a fresh take. There is a need, she said, to “translate” gender-sensitivity into daily “newspeak” so that it becomes a habit, and striving for gender-balanced stories becomes second nature to reporters.

Words and attitudes

Tan cited the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which tells us that words shape the way we think. For members of the media, this means that the choice of words carries an influence that goes beyond merely stringing together letters that form sentences. He took the discussion further and said that perhaps these efforts should also target students in schools and universities, so gender-awareness would be developed in young people, which is important not just for future journalists and advocates, but for the whole society.

Professor Michael L. Tan

While Filipino is a gender-neutral language, Tan said that there are still dangerous pitfalls with the way we use the language, with the words we use reinforcing negative, insensitive attitudes towards gender. He cites the use of “gamit,” a colloquial term for having sex; translated literally, it means “to use,” reinforcing the attitude that women are objects to be used for sex. Tan advocates the use of the term “pakikipagtalik,” a more neutral word, but his research among medical personnel reveals that many women do not understand the latter term, and prefer to use the word “gamit” anyway.

Another example he cited is how Filipino terms for having sex with a women often have violent, forceful connotations: “binibira,” “tinitira,” “binabanatan.” Because language shapes the way we think, there is a danger that the nature of these words would affect one’s attitudes toward the opposite sex.

The lone student in a room full of teachers

I found whole discussion interesting, and I was inspired to speak up when the floor became open for questions. I shared that as a male reporter, especially one working for an organization with excellent veteran female journalists, it was a rare occasion that I was tasked to cover an event related to gender issues. I noted how sad it was that I was the only male journalist in attendance, and pointed out this was probably the case in other organizations as well. While I would not have a problem with doing stories about women and gender issues – in fact I would love to get a chance to do one – I probably would not have an opportunity to do so, because of how stories like these are usually assigned. Because of this, I said, a male reporter like me would take a bit of time to become comfortable doing these kinds of stories, simply for the lack of “practice.”

The audience full of women

The experts in the room pointed out that one does not have to write a story about women and gender to write gender-sensitive stories. By looking at stories through a “gender lens” – incorporating a gender-balanced perspective when developing and reporting stories – one would be able to write gender-sensitive reports even if the story is not necessarily directly about women and gender.

It was a great point, and in hindsight, I kind of felt stupid that I hadn’t looked at it that way in the first place. Although I must say that, as a man, I was no stranger to feeling stupid around women.

Still, while I got the point — and it is something that I would consciously try and apply to my work — I felt like the lone student in a room full of teachers. I couldn’t possibly be the only male journalist in the country who missed the point about the gender lens. And yet I was the only one in that room that afternoon. It could be mere coincidence, but it could also be an indication of how pitifully low the interest and awareness of males generally are when it comes to gender-related issues. Changing minds and changing attitudes require monumental effort, and one would think that more help from 50 percent of the population would be required to achieve that.

Candidates, parties lie, cheat,
bluff against election laws

Posted by: PCIJ | August 12, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Filed under: 2010 Elections

The last part of our three-part series on the audit of the election expense reports of the candidates looks at how candidates have run circles around campaign finance laws. The Commission on Elections is first to admit that it has no idea how to carry out a competent audit on campaign contributions and expenses, despite the volumes of documents it requires candidates, political parties, and media entities to submit.

Its inability to fully exercise its authority in ensuring compliance with campaign finance laws, however, may not only be due to a lack of resources and skilled personnel, but also because ambiguities in the laws themselves have led to confusion within and outside of Comelec.

By now, however, everyone has caught on to the fact that Comelec does not really scrutinize the papers it requires candidates, political parties, and media institutions to submit in compliance with campaign-finance laws. Comelec Law Department director Ferdinand Rafanan describes the general attitude of those being required by Comelec to submit documents this way: “It’s the old kind of thinking. Nobody cares. Everybody’s happy. Why disturb it?”

The sidebar story takes a look at how campaign finance rules, while clear about spending limits, reporting requirements and deadlines, and penalties, are hardly ever enforced. To date, no candidate for national office has been penalized for any violations, despite evidence that the rules have been played around with, and not so innocently.

Top bets, party-list groups
skirt ad caps together

Posted by: PCIJ | August 11, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Filed under: 2010 Elections

Part 2 of our three-part report on the audit of the election expense reports of the candidates looks at how top bets for president and vice president conspired with party-list groups to get around caps on election spending. Presumably the defenders of the powerless and the voiceless, these groups seem to have allowed the themselves to be used as front and proxy for some of the country’s most powerful.

The party-list groups got some exposure when their names were flashed for a fleeting second in the last frame of the ads of Liberal Party candidates Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and Manuel Roxas II, Nacionalista Party’s Manuel B. Villar Jr., and re-electionist senator Juan Ponce Enrile.

By then, these candidates had nearly maxed out their campaign airtime limits. But with the party-list groups as surrogates, they managed to lodge more ads on television.

Yet it seemed like an unfair exchange for the party-list groups. It was like having two riders on a bicycle, one positioned behind the other - the front rider (politician) basked in the glory of the limelight, and the back-rider (party-list group) wallowed in his shadow.

The advertising contracts and booking orders that media agencies submitted to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) enrolled these party-list groups as both the buyers and the products of millions of pesos worth of political ads with ABS-CBN Corp., GMA 7 Network, and TAPE Inc., producer of the popular noontime variety show, “Eat Bulaga.”

A number of the parties declared these advertisements as part of the costs they incurred in the Statement of Electoral Contributions and Expenditures (SECE) that they filed with the Comelec.

The actual TV ad clips and documents support the fact or irony that the supposed “marginalized” party-list groups spent millions to support well-funded national candidates.

Auditing the 2010 elections

Posted by: PCIJ | August 10, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Filed under: 2010 Elections

Our latest offering is a three-part report on our audit of the Statement of Electoral Contribution and Expenditure (SECE) that the top candidates for president  and vice president in May 2010 elections had filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Over the last two months, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) had worked on this, a project that tested our patience, stamina and humor to the hilt. The effort, after all, entailed poring over innumerable pages of numbers and facts that the candidates had enrolled as the expenditures they had supposedly incurred, and the donations that they had supposedly received.

These numbers have had to be validated and cross-referenced, however, with other inestimable sets of numbers. One was the contracts and telecast orders that the candidates, the political parties, and their representatives had signed with media agencies. Another was Nielsen’s monitoring of political ads that aired during the official 90-day campaign period for national candidates.

The clutter of data would not mean much if only the candidates did right by the laws on campaign spending limits, which are sadly, largely gray and untested. And absent any vigorous efforts by the Comelec to audit the SECEs, not a single candidate has been convicted for violation of campaign finance laws.

Indeed, the issues hang: Did our candidates for high office, notably those who won and now govern us, tell the truth in their SECEs?  If they did not, is it ever all right for them to lie, cheat and bluff every election season?  And finally, what can or must the Comelec do to end the charade of money and politics in our land?

The costliest ever in Philippine electoral history, the May 10, 2010 elections was for various reasons also a grand spectacle of lies, half-truths, and concealed truths foisted on the Filipino voters.

These reasons include:

• Porous campaign-finance laws and inconsistent interpretation of the specific provisions by the Comelec;
• The negligence and inability  of the Comelec to enforce these laws for reported lack of trained manpower, time and resources;
• An apparent pattern among most candidates, political parties, and their representatives to circumvent the laws in a “knowing and willful” manner;
• A patent conspiracy among candidates, political parties, party-list groups, and donors to defy the laws; and
• Uneven compliance by media agencies and service contractors with their reporting duties.

Overspending, misreporting, concealment of facts by the top candidates for president, vice president, and their political parties and associated party-list groups – these are among the findings of the PCIJ’s audit of election expense reports that the top candidates had subscribed and sworn to be true and accurate.

Part 1 of our report summarizes our review of the half-truths and concealed facts in the election spending reports filed by candidates for president Benigno Simeon Aquino III, Manuel B. Villar Jr., Joseph Estrada, Gilberto C Teodoro Jr.; candidates for vice president Manuel Roxas II, Loren Legarda and Jejomar Binay; and their political parties.

The 15th Congress: Clans
keep tight grip on power

Posted by: Tita C. Valderama | July 29, 2010 at 9:12 am
Filed under: Congress Watch

MOSTLY the same old names but new faces, first-timers and benchwarmers, veterans and returnees. This is the composition of both the Senate and the House of Representatives of the 15^th Congress.

Of the 12 senators elected to a six-year term last May 10, only two are first-time senators (Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Teofisto Guingona III) while seven will serve their second term, and three others are returnees, or had previously served in the Senate.

But even the neophyte senators, who are namesakes of their fathers, are not exactly novatos in politics. Marcos had served as congressman and governor of his home province of Ilocos Norte. Guingona had finished his three-term limit in the House. Both their parents had served as senators. Marcos’s father, the late strongman Ferdinand, ruled as president for 20 years, including 14 under martial law. Guingona’s father, Teofisto Jr., was handpicked to served as vice president to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from 2001 to 2004.

Re-elected to a second six-year term were Senators Pia Cayetano, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Franklin Drilon, Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Ejercito, Manuel “Lito” Lapid and Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. Then, too, there are the Senate returnees - Sergio Osmena III, Ralph Recto and Vicente “Tito” Sotto.

Three of the re-elected senators (Defensor-Santiago, Drilon, and Enrile) are, in fact, returnees twice over. Enrile was at the Senate in 1987 to 1992 and in 1995 to 2001. He took a break to serve as congressman representing Cagayan province, and then returned to the Senate in 2004.

In the House of Representatives, there are 95 first-time district congressmen, including former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who took the district represented in the previous Congress by her elder son, Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, and former Senator Rodolfo Biazon, who ran and won in the district that his son, Rozzano Rufino, had represented in the last nine years.

The elder Biazon had reached his two-term limit at the Senate while the younger Biazon ran for the Senate to take his father’s place but lost.

Celebrities

Celebrities from politics and entertainment litter the list of the House members. Apart from former President Arroyo and former Senator Biazon, the flamboyant former First Lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos and Georgina Perez-de Venecia, wife of five-time Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. are also representatives of Leyte and Pangasinan, respectively.

Not to be left out, boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, congressman of the lone district of Sarangani province, lifted from Frost in a privilege speech on the second session day to spell out his plans in the next three years.

Beauty and star-appeal have been added, too, courtesy of Lucy Torres-Gomez (Leyte) and Jesusa Victoria H. Bautista a.k.a Lani Mercado-Revilla (Cavite).

Except for Romualdez-Marcos, this is the first time for De Venecia, Pacquiao, Torres-Gomez and Mercado-Revilla to sit in Congress. De Venecia and Mercado-Revilla, however, had always been immersed in politics and public service, if unofficially, through their respective spouses, Speaker De Venecia and Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr.

Ahead of the opening of Congress last Monday, Pacquiao, Torres-Gomez and Mercado-Revilla had enrolled in short programs for new legislators conducted by the Development Academy of the Philippines and the University of the Philippine National College of Public Administration and Governance.

Clans still rule

The cast of characters has changed somehow for the party-list groups. Of the 35 party-list representatives who had taken their oath as of July 27, only one of the 16 first-termers had served before in Congress. In addition, 13 party-list representatives are on their second term, and six, on their third and last term.

Politics remains a family affair in many congressional districts where the political clans have held steadfastly on to their seats.

There are 18 House returnees, or members who had previously served in the same districts they now represent. They are retaking their posts from a spouse, son, daughter, or another close relative who had precisely warmed the seat for a term or two to keep political rivals out of their turf.

In lieu of at least 41 representatives who had either reached their three-term limit or ran for another elective position, close relatives had come in as substitute players. That reads as either spouse, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, or in-law.

At least 33 other members of the 14^th Congress had been replaced by their spouse, son or daughter, brother or sister, in-law, or political protégé and surrogate. A few others had run for another position and fielded a relative to take over their congressional seats. An example is Exequiel Javier who had reached his three-term limit as congressman of Antique, and is now governor of the province. His son, Paulo Everardo Javier, took over his House seat.

They might claim to have won the votes but in truth, a good number of the members of Congress belong to political clans that have kept politics and business in their city, town, district, province, or region under tight grip for decades.

Winners, losers

To be sure, a reversal of fortunes, and thus a few changes, had unfolded in the House, albeit in musical chairs fashion. Hitherto in the political minority, the Liberal Party of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has forged a multi-party coalition and turned majority.

Former President Arroyo has slid down to join her two sons in the House, and together they would play their new role as opposition lawmakers. She now sits as representative of the Pampanga district that her elder son Juan Miguel had occupied for two terms; he now sits as first-term nominee of party-list Ang Galing Pinoy.

Younger son, Diosdado Ignacio, is a second-term solon from Camarines Sur, representing a
new congressional district that Congress has had to create to accommodate Arroyo’s budget secretary, Rolando Andaya Jr. whose district Diosdado Ignacio had represented earlier.

Andaya had served for three terms in the first district of Camarines Sur, the same seat that his father and namesake, RolandoSr., had occupied for three terms from 1987 to 1998.

Apart from Andaya, at least six other former “stars” of the old regime are now simply House members. They are former agriculture secretary Arthur Yap, who ran unopposed as congressman of the third district of Bohol; former presidential spokesman Anthony Golez, representing the lone district of Bacolod City; former presidential legal counsel Sergio Apostol, who reclaimed the second district of Leyte from his wife; former TESDA chief Augusto Syjuco, who replaced his wife to represent the second district of Iloilo; former housing executive Romero Federico Quimbo, Marikina City’s second district; and former agriculture undersecretary Jesus Emmanuel M. Paras, Bukidnon’s first district.

Whether or not they will take on the role of opposition or fiscalizer might also depend in large measure on how far they will go to defend the Arroyo administration from sundry allegations of irregularities and midnight deals.

In truth, while some Arroyo government officials won, a few other big names lost big in the May 10 elections. Among them were former Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who lost to Tomas Apacible in the first congressional district of Batangas; former Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who was defeated in the mayoralty race in Iloilo City. Gonzalez’s son and namesake, Raul Jr., also lost in his re-election bid as congressman of Iloilo City.

Jailed, died

The quaint casting of characters in the House continues to evolve and amaze still. Even before it could convene last Monday, one member had been arrested and jailed, while another had succumbed to an illness.

Before he could assume his second term as congressman of Ilocos Sur’s first district, Rep. Ronald V. Singson found himself behind bars in Hong Kong for possession of 26.1 grams of cocaine and two tablets of valium when he arrived at the airport on July 11.

An article on Singson’s website described the 41-year-old lawmaker as “a fair-haired boy” of his controversial father, Ilocos Sur Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson and as “a young man who has the distinction of having a father whose daring exploits including that of being the central figure behind the unseating of a President may find no parallel in the future.”

Meanwhile, third-term Cagayan Rep. Florencio L. Vargas, 78, died of leukemia on July 22. He was governor of the province from 1998 to 2001.

Year after year, the House of Representatives has been expanding its membership. From less than 200 legislative districts 10 years ago, the House now has 228 districts, including nine created by the 14^th Congress, and a growing roster of party-list representatives.

Thanks to the previous Congress, Cavite politicians now have more positions to fill. From three legislative districts, the province now has seven. The provinces of Agusan del Sur and Camarines Sur have one more each, while Iligan City, Lapu-Lapu City and Navotas now have their own legislative districts.

Parking place

The House has also become a convenient “parking” place for senators, governors, and mayors who have reached their term limits set under the 1987 Constitution. Others are bench-warmers for a parent, brother or sister, son or daughter, in-law, or political patron or protégé. In some instances, two members of a family or leaders of two controlling families in a locality have simply switched positions to make sure their rivals won’t have a chance to get into power.

At least nine of the incumbent congressmen were provincial governors in the previous term. They are: Angelica Amante-Matba of Agusan del Norte, Ma. Valentina Plaza of Agusan del Sur, Rogelio Espina of Biliran, Joselito Mendoza of Bulacan, Ben Evardone of Eastern Samar, Raul Daza of Northern Samar, Milagrosa Tan of Western Samar, Aurora Cerilles of Zamboanga del Sur and Loreto Ocampos of Misamis Occidental.

Seven members of the previous House of Representatives are now provincial governors. They are: Abraham Mitra of Palawan, Exequiel Javier of Antique, Alfonso Umali Jr. of Oriental Mindoro, Edgar Chatto of Bohol, Paul Daza of Northern Samar, Carmencita Reyes of Marinduque, and Herminia Ramiro of Misamis Occidental.

There are at least six incumbent congressmen who were city or municipal mayors in their previous term. They are: Tobias Tiangco of Navotas, Jerry Trenas of Iloilo City, Feliciano Belmonte Jr of Quezon City, Joseph Victor Ejercito of San Juan, Sigfrido Tinga of Taguig City and Tomas Osmena of Cebu City.

At least two former congressmen are now mayors: Ma. Laarni Cayetano of Taguig and Del de Guzman of Marikina City. Cayetano defeated former congressman and Supreme Court Associate Justice Dante Tinga, father of Sigfrido Tinga who ruled Taguig City as mayor for three terms before becoming a congressman.

While there is one former senator in the House, the Senate has two former congressmen in its roster: Teofisto Guingona III and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Their colleagues: Rodolfo Plaza of Agusan del Sur, Rozzano Rufino Biazon of Muntinlupa, Nereus Acosta of Bukidnon, Risa Hontiveros of party-list Akbayan and Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza of Bayan Muna party-list lost in their bid to the Senate.

Also, there are two retired police generals in the House: Romeo M. Acop of Antipolo City’s second district, and Leopoldo N. Bataoil of Pangasinan’s second district. Acop used to be with PNP’s Criminal Investigation Service while Bataoil headed the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).

All in the family

Seven senators have immediate family members in the House: Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile is the father of Cagayan Rep. Juan Ponce Enrile Jr.; Sen Edgardo Angara is the father of Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara; Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. is the father of Las Pinas City Rep. Mark A. Villar; Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri and Bukidnon Rep. Jose Zubiri III are brothers; Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is a son of Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda R. Marcos; Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is a half-brother of San Juan City Rep. Joseph Victor Ejercito; and, Sen. Ramon Revilla and Cavite Rep. Lani Mercado are a couple.

These do not count yet cousins, in-laws, and other relatives in Congress.

There are also siblings and mother-son tandems in the same legislative body. At the Senate, Alan Peter Cayetano and Pia Cayetano are siblings, while former President Arroyo is with her two sons at the House: Camarines Sur Rep. Dato Arroyo and Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo of party-list Ang Galing Pinoy.

Lanao del Norte’s two districts are now represented by the mother-daughter tandem of Imelda Quibranza-Dimaporo and Fatima Aliah Q. Dimaporo. Two of Cebu’s six districts have the father and son tandem of Pablo P. Garcia and Pablo John F. Garcia.

In Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga Sibugay, three relatives of convicted child rapist and former congressman Romeo Jalosjos are occupying House seats: nephew Frederick Seth Pal Jalosjos and brother Cesar Jalosjos in the first and third districts of Zamboanga del Norte, respectively, and son Romeo Jalosjos Jr. in Zamboanga Sibugay.

Malabon City Rep. Josephine Veronique Lacson-Noel is the wife of An Waray party-list Rep. Florencio “Bem” Noel while Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez is an elder brother of Abante Mindanao party-list Rep. Maximo B. Rodriguez Jr.

President Benigno Aquino III has at least three relatives in the present Congress: Carmen Cojuangco of Pangasinan (wife of second cousin Marcos Cojuangco); Enrique M. Cojuangco of Tarlac (brother of businessman Eduardo Cojuangco who is an estranged first cousin of the President’s late mother); and Tarlac third district’s Jeci Aquino Lapus, a second-degree uncle.

At least three congressmen have immediate family members in the Aquino Cabinet: Batanes Rep. Henedina R. Abad is the wife of Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad; Quezon Rep. Irvin Alcala is a son of Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala; and Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo is a son of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo.

The secretaries of budget and agriculture had served as congressmen while Romulo was at the Senate from 1987 to 1998. Then President Arroyo tapped him as finance secretary in January 2001, then as executive secretary in May 2001 until he was moved in 2004 to the Department of Foreign Affairs. - PCIJ, July 2010

Civil servants on SONA:
We’re in wrong agency

Posted by: Che delos Reyes | July 27, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Filed under: Noynoy Watch

PRESIDENT Aquino’s revelations of alleged anomalies committed by the Arroyo administration did not strike some civil servants as a “shock and awe” State of the Nation Address. His exposes, however, left them feeling a bit shortchanged.

Like the rest of the nation, employees of a government agency yesterday watched and listened in to Aquino’s debut SONA. They are, after all, the workforce that is expected to deliver on most of Aquino’s SONA promises.

“Hindi naman talaga shocking kasi expected nang sasabihin nya ang mga inabutang problema,” says Rorie, a researcher in a government agency based in Quezon City.

While Aquino was delivering the SONA, Rorie’s colleagues were even joking, “Mali pala ang agency na napasukan natin,” referring to the fat bonuses that Aquino disclosed officials and employees of the Metroplitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) had awarded themselves. A government-owned and controlled corporation, the MWSS was one of several agencies that got special mention in Aquino’s SONA, albeit in a bad light for supposed overspending and misspending.

To most employees of the government research agency, there was hardly anything new in Aquino’s revelations, says Chester, a researcher of seven years.

Chester and Rorie are part of a group of young civil servants in their mid-20s to early 30s who revealed their thoughts on the SONA to PCIJ on condition of anonymity.

A third employee, Anne, said she thought Aquino’s SONA was not only lacking in proposed solutions to the problems he cited but also offered nothing substantially new to what he had discussed in his inaugural speech last June 30.

“Pero wala pa naman kasing one month mula nang naupo sya sa pwesto (Of course, he has not been one month in office),” Anne says.

Sergio, also a researcher, notes that if anything, Aquino’s SONA was admirable for being “fearless” yet also “swift and short.”

His colleagues agree.

While Aquino may not be “as intellectually eloquent” as his contemporaries in politics with gift of gab, the researchers say the President succeeded in delivering his SONA in a manner that spoke “even to kanto boys” (street thugs).

In his speech, Aquino repeatedly used the term ‘pakikilahok’ (participation), indicating that he puts a premium on people’s participation and the need for cooperation from all sectors to make change possible.

This statement, as well as his earlier pronouncement that the people are his ‘boss,’ points at Aquino’s ability to rekindle the sense of nationalism and cooperation among Filipinos, according to Anne.

Aquino has a knack for swaying people to his side, Anne says, adding that she wonders though if the President’s positive trait could be “translated into action.”

“Where will he get the money to fund his programs?” Rorie asks, citing that Aquino had earlier claimed that the Arroyo administration had precisely spent in its last six months more than half of the 2010 budget.

This matter is, to Sergio, a serious cause for alarm: “Kung one percent per month na lang ang natitira sa budget, paano na tayo? Paano ‘pag nagka-Ondoy ulit?” (If all that’s left of the budget is one percent per month, what would happen to us? What if there’s another Ondoy?)

Despite his extended rendering of the alleged anomalies in the past regime, the researchers find it uncanny that Aquino’s SONA skipped discussion of a number of equally vital issues, such as the Maguindanao massacre.

Sergio says, even as Aquino said he had solved half of the cases of “extra-legal killings” committed since he took office, the President kept mum about agrarian reform, including the pending case of the distribution of Hacienda Luisita,

Additionally, they cite that other big issues like the NBN-ZTE scandal, Charter change, pork barrel, and the Truth Commission were not discussed in Aquino’s first SONA.

On top of it all, however, the one issue that the group had hoped the President would address was the “rationalization plan for the executive.” It is the issue that hits home among civil servants as it deals with the unfinished task of “streamlining” the bureaucracy.

“Lahat ng casuals na-lay off na sa office namin. Sana nabanggit kung anong options ang pwedeng i-offer sa mga na-lay-off,” Chester says.

(All the casual employees in our office were already laid off. I was hoping that the possible options that could be offered to those who were laid off would be mentioned.)

Despite the oversight, Chester and his colleagues remain optimistic that the new President would deliver positive change. It is, however, an optimism that is tempered with their experience of working for the government for so many years.

“I’m optimistic that the government will indeed be clean,” says Chester, “but it seems hard to believe that everything Aquino promised to do would be accomplished in six years.”

“It’s a tall order,” Sergio agrees.

Yet, of the litany of allegations and promises Aquino made in his SONA, a single phrase struck a chord with Chester: “Pwede na muling mangarap.” (One can start dreaming again.)

Says Chester: “’Pag sa gobyerno ka kasi nagtatrabaho, parang hopeless, ’di ba? Wala kang patutunguhan. Pero sa administrasyon na ito, parang pwede na uli kaming mangarap.”

(If you are working in government, it often seems a hopeless situation. You’re getting nowhere. But with this administration, yes, it seems like we can start dreaming again.) – PCIJ, July 2010