SONA 2010: not quite a statesman's speech

When it came to this year's SONA, I will admit that I was ready to keep my expectations low. After all, it has only been a month since President Noynoy Aquino was sworn into power. There have been many issues for the new administration to investigate and settle, and many needs that have come up in the last few weeks. Despite all of these things, I did expect to hear what President Aquino had planned for the first year of his six-year stay in office. I hoped too that he would address in some detail different areas that he had not tackled in his inauguration speech, such as environmental issues, agrarian reform, and foreign relations.

Because of these hopes, I made it a point to secure a computer, earphones, and a large cup of coffee just to be able to watch the SONA on a live streaming site. Never mind if I was missing out on the free ice cream being given out on campus. When the internet connection slowed down, I immediately headed to where the SONA was being shown on a live feed to a discussion group. Sad to say, once the video coverage ended, I found myself sending a message to my mother that read, "Non solution nouveau" ---French for "no new solutions".

In the past few hours, there have been many who have lauded President Aquino's speech for his use of Filipino, complete with very up-to-date expressions targeted for the masses. There are already those who have already noted the lack of attention given to issues such as environmental problems, labor rights, agrarian reform, the reviewing of the Philippines' foreign treaties, and even the state of our health care system. All of these observations were indeed brought up in the one class I had that evening, during which the professor described the SONA as being "quite idealistic".

In my opinion, perhaps the better way of describing the SONA 2010 is not simply as "idealistic" but perhaps as being "not appropriate for a statesman". I say this because of the quality of some of the statements in President Aquino's speech. While he did take effort to put into some detail a few plans such as the proposed Fiscal Responsibility Bill and the putting up of yet another expressway, a great part of his speech either revolves around the exposing the ills of the previous administration, or in the use of rhetoric to gain the people's trust and sympathy. This is all well and good...for someone who is "manning the barricades" or the leader of a small faction, but not for someone who has been elected to the country's top executive post.

The use of motherhood statements and sketchy outlines of future projects is one of the oldest tactics of politicians who hope to win public support without making concrete promises that could compromise their credibility should they fail to follow through. It is tempting to appeal to public sympathies in a myriad of ways: making positive direct comparisons of one's self versus his/her predecessors, calling on the people's need to unify, mentioning God, mentioning duty, etc. When one is trying to win the people, it is expected that issues will be omitted and glossed over, "to be addressed at a later time" or to give less opportunities for one's detractors to speak out. This is how demagogues throughout history have managed to captivate the public: by the use of stirring language, logical fallacies, and strategic omissions.

However today's speech was supposed to be a State of the Nation Address, a means for the President to outline the country's conditions and what he intends to do to uplift it. So far, he has not given much substantiation as to how he will do it (like who is going to fund that new expressway idea of his?), and more importantly, he has omitted key issues that previous Presidents have made a point to at least mention. President Aquino should not just be a leader of a few, or a speaker aiming to win the minds and hearts of the masses. He is supposed to be a statesman, one who will make plans for the state to function, one who will concretize political ideals into sustainable projects. President Aquino can and should hang on to his ideals as he pursues his public policies. However, in the name of accountability, as well as to win not just the hearts of the Filipinos, but as well as their willingness, their mindsets, and even their outlooks towards the future, he must make it clear how he intends to get the people involved in his projects.

So many Filipinos are good at sympathizing, but they are not as good in committing to the arena of civic involvement simply because they do not see how their leaders want to work for them and with them. Sad to say, President Aquino had this one day to turn this trend around, and channel the people's confidence to actual participation. Today was a missed opportunity. Hopefully President Aquino will realize this soon enough, before SONA 2011 comes around.