Today, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will be making her valedictory State of the Nation Address (SONA). Assuming she steps down from power in 2010 as mandated by the Constitution, she will be leaving office as the longest serving president save for Marcos. Significantly, she will also be doing so as the most unpopular president in Philippine history.

As in all SONAs past, Arroyo is expected to use the occasion as venue for outlining her administration’s “accomplishments”. This particular SONA however holds particular meaning for Arroyo, as it marks the beginning of the countdown to her last days in office. As she addresses a restless nation, the word “legacy” will be very much on her mind.

But even as Arroyo strives to paint her administration in a positive light, we, the people, the very nation she will be endeavoring to deceive with the fiction of her accomplishments, will be out in the streets to put forward the real state of the nation.

For the indigenous peoples, particularly the participants of the State of the Indigenous Peoples Address being held simultaneously in Cagayan de Oro City and Quezon City, she leaves behind continued discrimination, rising human rights violations and legiitmized land grabbing in the name of an illusory development. This is her real legacy. These are what she has “accomplished” in the eight years that she sat in Malacañang. No attempt to rehabilitate her image can cover it up. Not even one done through high tech Powerpoint presentation in front of an assembly of flatterers in designer gowns and barong tagalogs.

The facts are clear enough. It is there in survey after survey showing her plunging approval ratings. It is there in the cacophony of criticisms she receives daily from an ever-broadening collection of critics. It is here in the streets today. It bears one simple message: Mrs. Arroyo, has overstayed her welcome.

Enough is enough! Eight years of her corrupt, self-serving anti-poor administration has brought nothing but suffering to the country, especially the indigenous communities who have borne the brunt of her misguided development priorities. History’s verdict is loud and clear. It is known to all Filipinos save for her most rabid sycophants and most zealous apologists.

She has failed her people and it is time for her to go.

Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center
on the occasion of the State of the Indigenous Peoples Address (SIPA)
July 27, 2009
Quezon City, Philippines
and
Manresa Compound, Cagayan de Oro