MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III is set to launch a blistering attack on his predecessor and flesh out an anti-corruption drive when he makes his first "State of the Nation" address on Monday.

Aquino, who is enjoying record public support 3 weeks into the job, has signalled his speech to parliament will outline the dire economic problems that he says he inherited from former president Gloria Arroyo.

"The work ahead will not be easy over the next few years. Nearly all the funds intended for use over the next few months have been stolen," the straight-talking leader told an army parade on Friday in an apparent preview.

Aquino later told reporters that his administration had discovered some major irregularities by Arroyo's government, and that he intended to use his speech to tell his countrymen about them.

"You will be very, very surprised at the things that we have discovered," Aquino said.

"I think the common reaction was, among those who already know, the expression of the mouth was: 'Ha, they did that! Why did they do that?' There is really no sense, no rhyme, no reason."

Aquino spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Saturday there would be nothing personal in the planned speech.

"There is no intention to spite or to offend Congresswoman Gloria Arroyo," he told reporters, describing it as an objective enumeration of facts.

Local press reports Saturday quoted Arroyo allies as saying the former president, who won a seat in the House of Representatives in the May elections, will be absent from parliament on Monday.

Calls to her office by AFP went unanswered Saturday.

Though many of her allies defected to Aquino's Liberal Party, Arroyo -- who was required by constitutional term limits to stand down as president -- still has a power base in parliament, where two sons and two in-laws also sit.

Aquino, 50, won the national elections by a landslide after promising to fight the massive corruption that he said festered during Arroyo's nearly 10 years in power.

A public opinion poll released last week showed more than 80% of the nation trusted the son of democracy heroine Corazon Aquino.

"The problem with that is that there is no way to go but down," said T. Lloydon Bautista, political economy professor at Manila's University of Asia and the Pacific.

Bautista said Aquino had three months to show how he would fight corruption and demonstrate his team could deliver basic services, or his popularity would start to fall.

"These are issues that affect the public and he has to confront them," Bautista told AFP.

Aquino's first 3 weeks in office have shown how tough his job will be in governing the chaotic nation of 92 million people, a third of whom live in dire poverty.

He has already been hit by a water crisis that saw supplies rationed in Manila, while a typhoon killed more than 110 people and caused 2 days of power outages across the capital.

In this light, Lacierda the Aquino spokesman said the address would also focus on how the new administration would get the job done.

"We are going to state the situation and then our proposed solutions, and the president will advance, state his proposed legislative agenda," Lacierda said.

But to get anything done Aquino must ensure there is enough money.

He said on Friday that Arroyo's administration had spent or allocated 90% of this year's budget by June 30, when he took office, leaving only 10% for his government to use for the next 6 months.