The time has come for reckoning.

As the man speaks before the nation, he would make a case for  the defense of his own record for the last 12 months as President.

Like all those who came before him, President Aquino is expected to highlight his achievements and downplay the many bad calls, wrong turns, even dumb moves.

We have not come short of guiding him along, critiquing his flawed decisions, hasty and harsh actions, and even arbitrary and sometimes whimsical choices that greatly diminished his otherwise enormous political stock.

And so we yield this patch of newsprint to an independent assessment by a governance watchdog.

A group of good governance advocates gave the Aquino administration a grade of 4.78 out of 10 points for its first year in office even as it sought the need to address challenges in raising state revenues, improving health services, and providing infrastructure.

In its 36-page assessment released three days before Aquino’s second State-of-the-Nation Address, the Movement for Good Governance said the score means that the government has to do more despite its gains.

“The rating of 4.78 means that there have been accomplishments, but more need to be done,” MGG was quoted by a major broadsheet as saying in a report released Friday.

MGG, made up of former government officials, academicians, and civil society leaders, used a 10-point scorecard in assessing whether Aquino kept his promises during his campaign.

A score of zero means the President has broken his promise while 2.5 means there has been “very slow or little progress” on his promise.

A score of 5 means “something has been accomplished but is lower than expected” while 7.5 means “the administration is on track and is expected to achieve the target as scheduled.” On the other hand, a score of 10 means the target has been achieved as scheduled.

MGG evaluated the administration in the areas of corruption, public finance, governance, environment, education, health, and economy.

“We used as hard or objective data as possible and analysis for you to see that the grading is transparent,” said Solita Monsod, MGG chairperson and former socioeconomic planning secretary.

“Through this exercise, we hope the Filipino people would follow this methodology rather than rely on buzz word or emotional assessments,” Monsod said.

MGG also said the President broke his promise when the freedom of information bill was not included in the list of priority measures.

It cited the government’s move to put more resources to witness protection and to create more than a thousand positions in the prosecutorial service. The hiring process, however, remains unclear, the report said.

The group said difficulties in obtaining officials’ statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth even if these are public documents also continue under the Aquino administration.

On governance, MGG said there were appointments made on a “payback system” such as those of people who helped Aquino during the election campaign.

“There are appointed undersecretaries or assistant secretaries who are not even familiar with the fundamentals of planning and budgeting, and it is taking some time before the operationalization and rollout of programs against poverty takeoff,” it said.