I.

INTRODUCTION

The State of Nation Address (SONA) is an address by the President of the Philippines and
it is done annually. It is a constitutional obligation and yearly tradition and is delivered every fourth
Monday of July at Plenary Session Hall of the Batasang Pambansa Complex located in Batasan
Hills, Quezon City, Metro Manila.

The State of the Nation Address (SONA) intends to inform all of the Filipinos of what are
the present economic, political, and social condition of the Philippines. It is also a great privilege
for the President to summarize the accomplishments and plans of his/her programme of
government both for a particular year and until the end of their term of office.

II. FOCAL POINTS

The 16th current President of the Philippines is President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PDU30).
He was known by the nickname “Digong” or “ Rody” and was born on the 28th day of March in
the year 1945. Taking office at 71 years old in June 2016, Duterte is the oldest person to assume
the Philippine presidency; the record was previously held by Sergio Osmeña at the age of 65.

There are a lot of issues that President Duterte mentioned but the three main issues that
catches my attention is about what he was mentioned regarding of bringing back the Death Penalty,
the Rehabilitation of Tourists attractions and once and foremost is the issue about the West
Philippine Sea.

The death penalty is a type of ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment from
which people will be executed once they commit the certain crime or the crime that the
Government think that is unforgivable. In a 2017 poll, there are 67% of Filipinos supported the
Death Penalty and so during the 4th State of the Nation Address of President Duterte, he asks the
Congress to bring back the death penalty for heinous crimes related to drugs and plunder. As
President Duterte’s opinion that the corruption is the root of drugs and the use of drugs lead to
crimes such as plunder, murder etc.

The rehabilitation of Tourists attraction is about closing one’s tourist spot in order to be
able to restore it again. The best example of it is the “Boracay Action Plan” from which President
Duterte ordered to close the Boracay to clean it and luckily the natural beauty of Boracay has been
restored just for only 6 months. President Duterte has been honored by those people who have seen
the amazing restoration of Boracay but he ordered them not to have such thing like that as he stated
that he was paid for what he is doing and so people should not thank him or honor him anymore.
He also stated that we have a long way to go with the manila bay rehabilitation and includes also
the planning of relocating the informal settlers and shutting down all the businesses that might
pollute the natural resources or even in city in order to have an organized and clean country even
there are tourists or not.
 Last but not the least, the issue of the West Philippine Sea. The Scarborough Shoal which
is located at the West Philippine Sea from which China included it on their Map as they believe
that all the parts of West Philippine Sea that was included on the coverage of the nine dash line
was all their territory even it is not related on a legal basis. Even though the Tribunal concluded
that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas
falling within the nine dash line, China even build an artificial land there and even fish on
Scarborough Shoal and even ordering the Filipino Fishermen to go away from the said Territory.
Even the Filipino have encountered a lot of trouble with the China, President Duterte did not make
any action. During the Sate Of the Nation Address (SONA), he repeated his claim the he can’t
assert Philippine Rights over the West Philippine Sea because he have a fear of sparking a war
against China. He actually defends his decision and let the Chinese Fishermen fish in Philippine
waters as he know that international sea laws allows such agreement.

III. REACTION

Regarding of the three issues that President Duterte has mentioned that catches my
attention, the only issue I am agree of is about the Rehabilitation of Tourists Spots as it has a great
impact in our natural resources. Since we are in the modern world, we tend to get all we want in
the nature but not only what we need that caused it with its destruction and extinction. I am proud
of President Duterte as he started to restore the famous Boracay, the Manila Bay and I hope that
he will do what he says regardless of restoring the Philippines from relocating all the informal
settlers, cleaning the roads and shutting down all the businesses that might destroy the nature.

But then, I am a little agree and disagree on both death penalty and his statement about the
West Philippine Sea. First thing is in his statement of bringing back the death penalty, I know that
there are crimes that is inhuman such as murder, rape, abortion and so on but the thing is we are
all humans. We are born freely and so why do we need to end someone’s life? For my own point
of view, we cannot solve a sin with another sin. I also know that forgiveness is not just a simple
thing but I still believe that peace and forgiveness is all what we need and we did not need death
penalty to fulfill our wants. Life imprisonment will do but death penalty is a total NO for me.

The last one is the statement of President Duterte in

IV. CONCLUSION