P-Noy To Deliver SONA With Or Without GMA

President Benigno S. Aquino III is set to deliver on Monday his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) before Congress, and he will do so with or without former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo attending the event, a Palace spokesman said yesterday.

“It is a constitutional mandate (for Aquino) to report to the House and the Senate on the state of the nation, and therefore the President will do so regardless of the presence or absence of Representative Arroyo,” according to Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda.

The secretary also stressed that the Chief Executive has been very busy with his speechwriters, and has been meeting with Secretary Ricky Carandang and Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III on the drafting of the speech.

“The President has been preparing for the SONA with total indifference as to whether Representative Arroyo is attending or not,” Lacierda said, noting that this is nothing new, especially because Arroyo, now a Pampanga congresswoman, absented herself from Aquino’s first SONA in July 2010.

“We’re no longer surprised. She didn’t attend the first time. So there is a precedent,” he said.

The Cabinet secretary refused to give details or even give Palace reporters any glimpse of what will be Aquino’s SONA. He called on the public to just wait and see, particularly the critics who have nothing good to say about the Aquino government.

Hopefully, this is not another venue that P-Noy will use to bash at his predecessor because it gets tiring already. The President and his staff should start moving forward which they should have done the moment they stepped into the Malacañan Palace a year ago.