WATCH: Drug war, communists, China overshadow pandemic in SONA 2021

When President Rodrigo Duterte arrived at Batasang Pambansa for his last State of the Nation Address, Filipinos were eager to hear about his concrete plan to fight the coronavirus pandemic and the highly infectious Delta variant.

Instead, the country saw a President rambling about his “imagined” wars against drug suspects and communist rebels. Until the end, the tough-talking Duterte was still defeatist towards Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea.

He dedicated around 22 minutes of his almost three-hour long speech discussing the COVID-19 crisis, but most of this came two hours into his final SONA.

At a time when the people are searching for answers amid the pandemic, Filipinos didn’t get much from their President.

Rappler’s Mara Cepeda reports. – Rappler.com