Writing A Long Speech Or Report – Vision & Subdivision. The Un-Scholarly Example Of BBM’s SONA 2024

I just published The Editor In Chief’s review on Pres BBM’s “SONA 2024” (see 24 July 2024, “BBM’s 3rd SONA Under Scrutiny By The Editor In Chief – Where Is The Vision?,” The Editor In Chief, blogspot.com) – I’m not happy. The title itself of my article gives you a summary of the SONA: No Vision! Is BBM without Vision for his country, only eyes for rice?

You cannot lead a country with 119 million people without a Vision! You can, but where will your leadership lead you when you don’t have a good idea where you want your country to go as one, to prosper all citizens?

For the needs-improvement SONA of BBM, I am blaming the Presidential Press Office (PPO). Wake up, PPO!

The above image is for composing a thesis, but looking at the whole image by itself indicates that if you want your long article (such as a SONA) to have Divisions, Sections and Sub-Sections, you should get from the image even just the idea of partitioning!
(image from libguides, search.yahoo.com)

I have never seen a long SONA like it that tackled so many topics and yet was presented as one continuous read – well, there’s always the first time.

And so, without Vision, BBM (and/or the Presidential Press Office) speaks/writes blindly!

Without Vision, BBM misses considering the poverty of millions of Filipino farmers. I am sure he wants prosperity for them, not for them to remain in poverty – but without Vision, there is nothing to push him to do something. So his eyes remain locked onto the price of rice.

If BBM asked the proper experts, like former Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, he would have been presented with a whole program for agriculture for the whole Philippines.

As a matter of fact, when Pres Rodrigo Duterte appointed Mr Dar as Secretary of Agriculture in 2019, he came in with a “New Thinking For Agriculture” (see article, “Dar Advocates Strategic, Sustained Investment In Agri For Sustainable, Inclusive Growth,” 25 Sept 2019, DA, da.gov.ph):

“New Thinking for Agriculture” as a science-based and inclusive development strategy built around eight paradigms, namely, 1) modernization, 2) industrialization, 3) promotion of exports; 4) farm consolidation, 5) infrastructure development, 6) roadmap development, 7) higher budget and investments, and 8) legislative support.

I note that Mr Dar presents “Modernization” as #1 paradigm – of course! What we need to overcome farmer poverty is to much-decrease the cost of production of crops and much-increase the net income. And you cannot do that with the old-time “Chemical Agriculture” (CA) – you have to resort to modern “Regenerative Agriculture” (RA), as RA solves 2 problems simultaneously:

(1) RA reduces much the cost of farming. Therefore, farmers benefit much from their increased net incomes.
(2) RA does not produce greenhouse gases (GHGs) that CA produces; it is the GHGs that produce Climate Change that in turn produces “El Niño” and “La Niña.” Therefore, everyone benefits from RA, not only the farmers but whole communities surrounding the farms.

What else do we want?!@517