A comprehensive situationer on the eve of BBM’s 4th SONA from my favorite Manila Times columnist —  a farmer and a thinker who doesn’t shoot from the hip. 

By Marlen V. Ronquillo

TRADITION dictates that the spotlight should be trained on the president, and the president alone, not only during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) — to take place tomorrow, July 28 — but also days before, during preparations for the annual event. But the Dutertes, former allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., are not bound by this tradition and will say anything, fair or foul, to divert the nation’s attention from him. Inviolable political traditions are apparently not part of the Dutertes’ dictionary.

Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing impeachment charges over her alleged failure to conform to basic ledger and accounting practices and to get the names of her spending recipients right, delved into the more complex field of water science — hydrology — a tortured claim that was instantly mocked by Claire Castro, Malacañang’s fierce spokesman, who herself may not have any grounding on water science. You think of Castro in these terms: as loyal to President Marcos as Steven Cheung is to United States President Donald Trump. Their principals never err.

After the vice president ventured into a rigid field of specialization that was definitely beyond her intellectual reach, her younger brother, Davao City’s Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, did the Act 11 — something that was also beyond the bounds of normal political behavior — challenging Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III to a boxing match.

If Baste’s intent was to distract Torre from what he was supposed to do, which was to prepare PNP field men for security work at the SONA, it did not work. Torre said yes to the challenge, set a date for it and even injected a sense of nobility into the younger Duterte’s grotesque behavior. Let us do a charity boxing match, with the proceeds going to those affected by the recent storms, Torre proposed.

Baste, for one reason or another, made a demand before accepting the challenge: a drug test for President Marcos, which was off-tangent to his original challenge and a sign of him clearly chickening out. Baste probably saw videos of Torre’s multiple push-ups and preparation for the match.

Was it broadcaster Waldy Carbonell who said the Dutertes do not really like fair fights? Even with the Dutertes’ showboating deflated by the President’s subalterns, multiple woes on several fronts will still be the gloomy backdrop of the SONA speech tomorrow. Days of incessant rains induced by Severe Tropical Storm Crising and Typhoon Emong — a months’ worth, weather experts say — overwhelmed the three regions that contribute 60 to 70 percent of the Philippines’ yearly economic output. Many parts of Metro Manila, Southern Luzon and Central Luzon were forced to declare a state of calamity due to the flooding the rains caused.

Television news vividly captured the anguish of people in the flooded areas: the dead bodies, the crowded evacuation centers, the long lines for relief goods, the low-lying residential areas that were turned into “Waterworld” overnight, and the creaky dams.

The other casualties, far from the media loop, were unreported. Near the field where I planted Napier grass for animal feed, the “sabog-tanim” of my neighboring rice farmer was inundated, the days-old rice sprouts swept into many directions. The “labanderas,” the ice cream vendors, the hollow-block makers and all the marginal workers who need the sun to ply their trade were in a state of both grief and paralysis.

All those who farmed know this: after a week or two of continuous rains, cash crops like “ampalaya” (bitter gourd) will wither and die after being exposed to only a week of harsh sunshine. My farmer-neighbor with the goner sabog-tanim also planted plots of bitter gourd and string beans. I do not know where he would get his next sustenance post-Crising and Emong. And how many small farmers across Central Luzon are in the same prostrate state? President Marcos will deliver his SONA amid a discouraging international context: the greatest trade shock in recent history that was the result of Trump’s unilateral imposition of punitive tariffs on trading partners, big and small. The President recently met with Trump to negotiate for a lower tariff. Trump responded with a 1-percent reduction of his earlier 20-percent tariff on Philippine goods shipped to the US — a clear “consuelo de bobo” — in exchange for zero tariffs on US goods shipped to our country.

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and almost all multilateral institutions have predicted slower global economic growth this year, next year and in 2027 after that without directly blaming the real culprit: the punitive tariffs that have disrupted a stable global trading order since World War II. The Philippines, the multilaterals said, will also fail to meet its growth target.

China and the European Union, with their sizable economies, can probably work their way around the tariffs and survive even without US trade. The Philippines and other smaller economies may just have to wait for Trump’s exit from office, which is more than three years away. Meanwhile, they have to live with the tariff-induced lumps and bumps.

I do not know how the people in Malacañang can spin a hopeful and forward-looking SONA with the domestic and international backdrop both gloomy and discouraging. Maybe they can borrow from the Duterte playbook, which is this: don’t let the facts get into the way of a triumphant SONA.