EVERYBODY'S talking about President Benigno Aquino III and his 6th State of the Nation Address (Sona) in the recent joint session of Congress at the end of his presidential term.
That is, everyone’s reacting to it.
But that’s what a Sona is---deserving of cold and hot reactions. This is especially when the affair in time is followed by the next election year, like in today’s politics when expectations of the presidential electoral choice of the ruling party candidate was more expected to be announced in the Sona, more than the counts of accomplishments?
The viewer watching the Sona was lured by video presentations within over two hours of the speech, in between 11,700 words.
Did anyone count the claps, not just PNoy’s coughs?
And the 2015 Philippine Sona holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s longest Sona ever rendered, which includes testimonials that former president Gloria Arroyo, PNoy’s political enemy as of this season, also used in her Sona in her time. Long before social media crept into the scene, the presidents reported jobs well done, suggested to the legislature bills needed and promised to do more, and better, in so many words taking some more and more time.
In the United States, the State of the Union Address (SOTU) traditionally uses up less than an hour, except in the case of former president Bill Clinton, who spoke for over an hour, plus 28 minutes and 40 seconds. But this was no social media staging, unlike in the later case of the other Filipino presidential Sona and PNoy’s report of the state of the nation.
In 2010, the Sona that PNoy presented took only 37 minutes but it certainly doesn't mean that the accomplishments were less of the year previous, does it?
Sona is an obligation of the national leader to present a report and reveal the programs in the next years within the presidential term. PNoy, as presentor of the 2015 state of the nation in his 6th year at the helm, counted accomplishments of his administration and revealed plans for the coming one more year with the hope that the next president would keep up the programs. These in the Sona met expectations, and didn’t.
But the constitutional aspect of the yearly reports of leaders of the country is worldwide, except probably in dictatorships where the power in the lead doesn’t report nor promise anything.
The Sona program in the Philippines has remained basically simple through the years, until the presentations became some sort of social media marketing products. The moment includes the march to the legislature, the display of party dresses, the video presentations, dramatic testimonies, more drama in the language in soft poetic phrases.
But the country is doing better than, say, Nelson Mandela’s South Africa where viewers are said to watch a “carnival that avoids (the) country’s real problems.” The South Africa Sona has the red carpet, the march and all, plus paparazzis. Viewers in the public galleries can tune in to hear the speech in the vernacular in all 11 official languages. Interpretations in the speech can also be made available for deafblind communication. And, of course, there are the praise singers from the provinces in colorful staging.
Sona history points to the first in the country presented by Manuel Quezon, first President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, leading the government in democratic guidance, presenting seven Sonas within his term from 1935 to 1944 up to the World War II years.
Sergio Osmeña Sr. delivered only one Sona near the post-war years. The biggest number of Sonas, 20 in all, was presented by Ferdinand Marcos within his rule from 1965 to 1986, more as though to simply inform the nation. The next highest number of Sonas was presented by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, nine Sonas in all within a term of almost ten years.
The Sona tells a nation what it lacks and where it needs to work on, beginning with the choice of the national leader. It's part of our democratic vigor.
(ecuizon@gmail.com)