On Sunday evening, I thought about asking my editor if I could submit my column later on Monday afternoon so I could watch the President’s state of the nation address first and write a column about it. By Monday morning, as I looked at the cats’ litter box, the dirty breakfast plates, the dusty floors, the unmade beds (we still don’t have a house helper) and as I thought about the cooking that still had to be done for the rest of the day, I started to change my mind. What benefit would I derive from watching the Sona anyway? Watching it won’t get the chores done.
I honestly doubted if watching Sona would give me an adrenalin rush and inspire me to push the definition of multi-tasking to new limits by doing the writing, cooking, dish washing, bathroom scrubbing and house cleaning all in the same afternoon and well before dinner time. I’ve watched Sona for several years in a row, wrote about some of them, and there’s never really been an iota of self-satisfaction in the exercise except for the knowledge that I still have the kind of memory that allows me to listen to a speech, remember salient points without writing down notes and even quote portions by sheer mental recall.
But is that not a bad thing – the lack of interest in current events? Shouldn’t it be the duty of every patriotic citizen to inform himself about everything that happens – including the substance of the President’s state of the nation address? Heck, a person who has kept his eyes and ears and mind open to everything that happens around him does not need anybody else – not even, or especially not, the President – to give him a recap of what transpired in the country during the last twelve months.
After listening to the Sona for so many years, the feeling that Sona is not really about the state of the nation persists. Sona is the President’s highly publicized once-a-year opportunity to make a speech about the achievements of his administration during the past year – and what constitutes achievement is a matter of personal perception that is highly susceptible to biases. Sona is and has never been an objective recital of how things have been but, more often, a highlight of achievements side by side with a watered down version of the things gone bad.
It figures, really. How can any President bear to stand there with the entire nation watching and listening and talk about his or her failures? How can any President willingly and publicly admit that the promises made during the previous year’s Sona has come to naught? What is there left to talk about then if all the ugly truths were glossed over? Very little, actually, so all we get is just a lot of chest thumping.
How can that be worth listening to? How can that be worth dropping everything else to focus on words and statements that are not even entirely truthful? Does the Sona become more important if it includes plans and promises? Because that’s how it’s been during the past years. The ugly truths are sugar coated and laid side by side with plans that are carefully calculated to make people feel optimistic and hopeful that things cannot be that bad because here is the President laying out all the solutions.
It’s a strategy called deflection. It’s a gimmick employed by magicians to veer the senses away from the performance so they won’t notice how the cheating is done. It can be anything from the presence of women in skimpy and glittery attires onstage to grandiose sets that can hold entire audiences in awe.
And the art of deflection has been perfected by publicists, political speech writers and image makers. They know that outrightly excluding ugly truths just doesn’t cut it. The trick is to mention them, albeit in a casual and very forgettable manner while, in the same breath, bombard the listeners with grand plans and lofty promises. It’s the stuff that big time politics is made of.
Does the substance of the Sona jump a notch higher if we consider the fashion show that accompanies it? That’s how it’s been year in and year out with female members of both chambers of Congress, as well as the spouses of the male members, outdoing each other with their expensive ternos especially designed to call the attention and make each of them distinct even from a distance. Oh, and never mind if some or many of them had been habitual absentees during the past year.
So why should this year’s Sona be important enough to get the house chores bumped off for an hour or two? One reason only. Because it is important to find out if people had been lying about the inclusion of ConAss and Chacha in the President’s speech. For all the speculations that had been circulating these past several weeks, I need to hear it with my own ears and see with my own eyes the expression on Mrs. Arroyo’s face when and if she turns the Sona into a propaganda speech in favor of ConAss and Chacha. I wouldn’t rely on media reports for that. I can’t.
So, I watched Mrs. Arroyo’s ninth and, hopefully, last Sona. “Constitutional reform” and Chacha were mentioned but only in passing. Deflection? You judge. It was a masterfully written speech, no doubt, though I wonder how accurate the figures were especially the part about how there are less poor people today based on a “self-perception” survey, whatever animal that may be. Just as I wonder why, if her administration’s achievements are as tremendous as she claimed, media has consistently failed to give her achievements as much coverage. On whose part does the failure lie – on the administration for failing to tell the whole truth or on the media for failing to report the whole and objective truth? Truth is such a rare commodity these days.
Indeed ms connie, it was just chest thumping. We tried watching it because the kids may have a school assignment about this, but even I cant stand to watch those congressmen clapping at the inanities of GMA’s speech.
There is a very good reason to the congressmen clapping – unlike in the past that portion of IRA allotment were even suspended, the President is funding and has increased the IRA allotment for the congressmen in time for the 2010 local and national election.
hahaha! Sana nga hindi sumakit ang kamay ng mga clappers—they counted 125 times raw yata na nag-clap ang audience niya.
iniisip ko nga rin kung yung mga nag-unlist sa sarili nila sa “self-rated poverty” rate e nabigyan ng tig-isang kilo ng bigas nung nakaraang taon.
ngayon ko lang nalaman na may self-rated poverty rate na pala and how important that rating was for the president to include in the SONA.
Ano daw? Inflation daw dropped to 1.5%????
If you looked at CPI for NCR for all income households, the food has gone up 3.5% (to 151.9 from 148.4) against June last year. Similarly, housing has gone up 3.4% (to 140.4 from 137). These two are main household expenses.
Yun exactly. How ironic can it be that the very poor think they are a bit richer for having received money and rice while the rest of the population is reeling from skyrocketing prices of food and other basic commodities? Speedy says fuel prices went up by 2 pesos/liter the day after Sona.
Just who were included in the survey, anyway? And since the speech mentioned percentages but not the number of respondents, just how many respondents were there exactly — three, five, twelve?
Dinah, Sona always reminds me of taping sessions of sitcoms. Perhaps we just don’t see the huge boards that say APPLAUSE raised at strategic moments.
kotsengkuba, hindi lang bigas. They also received cash. And GMA bluntly called it DOLE-OUT.
It was a huge advertising for the Presidency with emphasis of strong economy against a backdrop of global financial meltdown. This is glossed over with the fact that international Moody just recently increased its credit rating on the country.
Like any advertising gimmicks, it is all one sided picture – that of the Presidency and her run of government claiming false credits. But you can see beyond speech writers.
Let us start with facts from Philippine Bureau of Treasury. It is public record and the statistics are accessible. The national government debt doubled from 2.1 (in 2000) to 4.2 (in 2008) trillion pesos. It is a scary picture when you imagine yourself running a household and paying monthly your mortgage loan.
According to Reuters and Forbes, the government debt will reach 4.7 trillion pesos in 2010 from the 2009 programmed 4.489 trillion pesos level.
What is not told and conspicuously missing from the SONA is that the President relied heavily on both domestic and foreign borrowings to finance its increasing budget deficit. Deficit is when the government is spending more than what it can collect from taxes. The deficit is expected to widen to a record 250 billion pesos this year (2009). In addition to government spending, the government has to get additional loans to pay increasing maturing loans (burning fresh money right away) per Department of Finance. So you can understand when the President mentions of tax effort through improved collections and sin taxes increase, build modern infrastructure, making the economy fairer to the poor, and making the economy stronger.
No wonder Moody is happy to upgrade its rating just in time for another round of loans in time for election in 2010. Just as happy is the President and the creditors for this neat financial arrangement.
As usual the screwed Filipinos can only applause not knowing it will burned ones pocket and that of their children.
We’re still paying for the loans that Marcos got us into. Every President after him borrowed too. Add what Gloria has borrowed and no wonder we’re letting foreign corporations take over the seas, the mining, the beautiful coastal areas… Payment in kind but we still have to pay in cash plus interests.
‘..so all we get is just a lot of chest thumping.’ hmmm. wasn’t that also recent news with Gloria’s last visit to a hospital? she could’ve elaborated on that a bit more too. thumping, enlargement, hey it’s all the same to me.
You know, that breast enlargement gossip was sensational and all and it sent the rumor mills buzzing but I don’t think it’s anyone’s business but hers. I mean, we have the right to criticize policies and official acts but unless someone shows how breast enlargement (if true) affects policies and public service, what’s the point in making a public issue out of it?
Oh, BTW, medyo out of topic, pero since you mentioned “dirty breakfast plates” in your first part, may I share one way on how I coped with this problem when I had a 7:30 am class schedule and all three of us in the family had to be out of the house earlier than 7 am— We used paper plates for breakfast! That’s it… dispose of the plates in the trash, then yung utensils nakababad sa sudsy water. Then, later na lang ang talagang dishwashing when I came back. Just sharing a practical tip that I also learned back then.
LOL We used paper plates in the old house during typhoons when power was out and water supply ran low. And when we ran out of paper plates, I wrapped the regular plates with cling wrap hehehehe