President Benigno Aquino III delivering his first SONA - photo: Yahoo! Southeast Asia

See the full text of Pres. Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" Aquino III's State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) 2010 below. The English version follows right after the original Filipino text. Thanks, Manolo Quezon III for the transcript.

It has been said that Filipino voters are getting smarter and smarter when it comes to choosing people who will be entrusted in running the severely-crippled government of this overly-populated nation. The thing is, in most of the people who desire to be choices in the selection of leaders, very few of them are smarter and better than the ones who were proven to be plain crap when it comes to leadership and governance. Most of the names that we can find on the lengthy ballot (not to mention the ridiculously-named party list aspirants whose stupid founders think that naming their group 111111-AAAAA would make them win) are the same people who have done nothing to save this almost God-forsaken country from severe poverty, misgovernance, and all sorts of problems that make the Filipino people think less of hope, and more of the worse.

I have had enough of seeing the Philippine Senate turn into an extravagantly-funded soap opera by getting proliferated with actors and actresses who do not have any know-how on how to run their marriages and the government, and those who act to be good but would suck when rated by a movie buff.

It may have occurred to some that Filipinos are some of the most nationalistic people that this world has ever seen. Filipinos take pride of having a democratic nation that usually hits international news headlines that tells of stories of Filipinos who are willing to exchange their lives for a free nation, a nation that peace-loving people have always dreamed of. Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Ninoy Aquino, yes, nationalistic Filipinos who exchanged their lives all in the name of the Philippines, a nation that few have loved, a nation that many have pretended to love.

The socio-economic conditions that continue to worsen by the day may be the very reasons for the rapid day-to-day decrease of Philippine nationalism. Any middle- to lower-class Filipino who may happen to be asked on what they feel about the current state of their beloved native land, an instant answer would be an answer of disappointment. It is sad to note that despite the rapid industrialization of the country, the poor become poorer, and the rich become richer. An even sadder fact is that the rich who become richer are not Filipinos, but foreigners who fill up their pockets with products of Philippine soil and Filipino sweat, and leave the poor people behind with only wages that are never enough to fill up stomachs with real food and minds with real education.

It's has been sometime already that I realized that human eyes and shampoo do not go well.

If only all shampoos in the Philippine market are those with the 'no more tears' formula, I wouldn't be complaining to the multinational companies existing in the Philippines what churn out sachets of Rejoice shampoos and even got Filipinos into tricking that those sachets do really have 20% more in the sachets (unfortunately, I believed them).

The title of this post may also be "the government is not for the people". Well, the citizens, that is. But the difference is, Filipinos have fully-realized long-ago that the Philippine government was never for the Filipinos. By the way, there's no point in discussing this issue, as all of us already complained about the government. If only all the officials in the government are those with the 'no pockets filled' attitude, everything will be fine. But the thing is, they're not.