Today is SONA day. It’s the 81^st SONA that started in 1935 in the first SONA delivered by the first Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel. L. Quezon. The last was, of course, by the last President Rodrigo R. Duterte who outlined his wins and draws over the six years of his governance and some suggestions for the next administration to finish.

 

President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. will be making the 81^st Philippine SONA and his very first presidential and official assessment of the State and country he inherited to govern for six years. No doubt he will reiterate the whole theme of his presidential campaign, the message of unity of the nation, to look to the future instead of the past, and then give the details of his plan of action on the pressing issues of the land today.

 

Outside the halls of Congress where the SONA will be held the PNP will be lining up 20,000 of their men like phalanxes against any potential attack reminiscent of the January 26, 1970 storming by the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) of the NDF-CPP of the Philippine Congress steps as the elder President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Sr. (FEM) stepped out after delivering his second term’s 1st SONA (which was held in January then after November elections patterned after the U.S.).

 

The incident that day may be forgotten by many or never even heard of by the Millennial generation but it is historically significant that I must recall for everyone at this time. The CPP youth front organization Kabataang Makabayan (KM) in a very organized fashion with frontliners at the spearhead carried two effigies, one crocodile and one coffin, overwhelmed the sparse phalanx of police and security around the presidential limousine and threw at Marcos the effigies as he entered the limo. (See photo below)

 

 

It was the first time the Philippine media audience had ever seen such a scene and I later understood how it was organized when I was handed a pamphlet by the later Fr. Jose C. Blanco entitled “How the Reds Create a Riot” (but it seems these days of “regime change” the CIA has mastered it as well). It was also the first time our police and military security encountered such a well-planned mob attack. Ever since then our PNP has always “overkilled” the security preparations.

 

There is a lot of speculative projections about what this 1^st SONA of President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. (PBBM) will contain. But actually, there will be very little surprises to the serious political watchers and analysts as the present challenges are clearly defined, that is the economic, pandemic and security issues, as well as the response of the PBBM administration will be as seen by his appointments to the key cabinet posts.

 

In the economy, there will be now shift from the basic neo-liberal economic and financial paradigm and not adoption of the real effective control of currency and capital to stem the tide of imported inflation from the U.S. as Russia, China, Vietnam are doing through currency and capital control hence turning the tide against imported inflation. But PBBM is adopting, consciously or unconsciously, socialistic moves such as “free LRT rides for students”, Kadiwa rolling stores, farm-to-market road campaigns.

 

While PBBM has enunciated a balanced foreign relations policy he is actually continuing the pivot to China that began with Marcos Sr., revived by President Duterte and now tacitly being followed and even, apparently, expanded by PBBM with a looming 1^st official presidential state visit to China before any other country – which is a vital and historically appropriate and timely move given the global trends we explain in the segment below.

 

The U.S. and West in recession and 99% towards Worse Great Depression

 

After gathering all the analyses and information I could in the past week it is now safe enough to say that the U.S. is now in recession. The U.S. second quarter economic performance if negative 1.6% that the Fed is still holing back from officially announcing but with professional economist and financial players are already talking about in U.S. media. Its first quarter growth was negative 1.4%. Two successive quarters of negative growth equal recession, though some say “mild”.

 

Mid-July 2022 U.S. inflation had already hit 9.1% which several economists and Wall Street stock analyst I have monitored on Stanberry, a financial market analysts show, and other discussions, have been saying will “explode” further as the U.S. Fed has no other measures to take but to continue interest rate hikes which cannot go on forever and cause that Paul Volker moment (1979 U.S. Treasury Secretary raised U.S. interest rate to 20%, PHL interest rate went up to 40-50%).

 

The U.S. is into a Roller Coaster ride without a down ramp ahead, hence it is doomed to careen off the tracks and fly off into space and come crashing down back to the ground in smithereens “worse than 1929 Great Depression”. It could start an “upset the cart” strategy by creating a war, except that it is two years away from perfecting its rudimentary hypersonic missile while China is already simulating its hypersonic attacks on the U.S. with the global Baidou navigational satellite network.

 

The Oil, Food, Consumer inflation crisis in the U.S. has even forced Biden to kneel before Saudi Arabia for more oil – to no avail. The reality is, the U.S. has to come to terms with China to help stem its inflation and save itself from the Great-Great Depression. To this end, the U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Department are already arranging for the removal of some tariffs from Trump’s trade war with China. So, reassured that PBBM is on the right tracks going hand-in-hand with China in to the future, we can sit back and relax while watching PBBM’s 1^st SONA.

 

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