{"id":56823,"date":"2015-07-24T14:22:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T06:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=56823"},"modified":"2015-07-24T14:33:34","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T06:33:34","slug":"no-details-on-sona-yet-except-p700-per-plate-budget-for-merienda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/24\/no-details-on-sona-yet-except-p700-per-plate-budget-for-merienda\/","title":{"rendered":"No details on SONA yet, except P700-per-plate budget for merienda"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Malaca\u00f1ang Palace (Facebook photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 The Malaca\u00f1ang has not yet disclosed the theme or details of President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III\u2019s last State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27.<\/p>\n

But just like in the previous SONAs, Aquino will report to his bosses, the Filipino people, the accomplishments of his promises and the completed programs of his administration.<\/p>\n

Conversely, the Palace has maintained that the President will indeed sum up the last five years and will disclose his plans for the last months of his term. With regards to the challenges the government have been through, they could not say if these will also be included.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be best to wait for his speech. All I can say is that in all of his SONAs, he had been truthful to the people,\u201d Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a Philippine Star report.<\/p>\n

But while details of Aquino\u2019s speech remain blurry, the \u2018expensive\u2019 P700-per-plate budget for the event\u2019s merienda (snacks) has been heavily criticized.<\/p>\n

The event\u2019s buffet table will include Angus beef with soft rolls at the carving station, carbonara and puttanesca pastas, bacon-wrapped chicken rolls, chicken barbecue kebabs, shrimp rolls with sweet chili sauce and bread sticks with four-cheese artichoke dip.<\/p>\n

The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) questioned the necessity of such lavish merienda while Filipinos suffer from poverty and food shortage around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor lawmakers and VIP guests, the SONA menu for merienda may look ordinary or even cheap. But for a jobless person and for the many families living in subsistence level, a P700-per-plate merienda made of black angus and shrimp rolls, among others, is lavishly alienating and of course, insulting,\u201d PM chairman Renato Magtubo said, adding that some Filipinos use that budget for a week\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n

The Malaca\u00f1ang, for their part, defended that they have actually lowered this year\u2019s budget to P2.2 million as compared to last year\u2019s P2.3 million while still trying to keep the event\u2019s historical importance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tightened some expenses but we don\u2019t want to compromise the quality of the program, this is the last and we will make it special, just like the other SONAs,\u201d House Secretary General Marilyn Barua-Yap said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 The Malaca\u00f1ang has not yet disclosed the theme or details of President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III\u2019s last State …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":56824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-56823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-rewrite","mauthors-cyra-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}