Any moron can dismiss the SONA
July 28th, 2009 by benign0President Arroyo’s got up to the podium, delivered her State of the Nation Address (SONA), and then stepped down from the podium.
That backgrounder out of the way, I can then say that it is quite heartening that within FilipinoVoices.com, at least, some of the usual suspects had the decency to see beyond their almost dogmatic biases and regard the content of the speech first and then render their verdict on that basis. Without a doubt, it is just a speech — albeit, a well written and delivered one. As such, it seemed to have moved even Arroyo’s most dogged critics. Of course there were morons who seemed to have just sat through the address, pen and notepad on hand, in a mental state that set them up to react only to the stimuli of keywords that were relevant to the question of her political ambitions after 2010:
Everything was a “lie”…
As expected, Gloria Arroyo enumerated a litany of lies about her so called accomplishments.
… and thus:
[...] she is tuso. She lets her minions do the manipulation to amend the Constitution so she can stay in power forever.
… after which this “reporter” proceeds to quote the entire speech verbatim in the same blog post.
Whatever.
As I said earlier, it is just a speech. Whatever way it moved people is nice fodder for the usually vacuous Philippine Media to broker at a yummy profit. True enough, this morning, the always insightful Bandila “news” program already had their cameras and mikes shoved in the faces of Jose de Venecia (live via Skype — apparently ABS-CBN is scrimping nowadays) from Australia and Erap (speech boozily slurred in his usual excellent form) — two of the bato-batos hit by the proverbial stone thrown in the SONA. The third bato-bato knocked squarely on the forehead is squeakily self-righteous Mar Roxas caught on camera schmoozing with street protesters, if I recall right, after “boycotting” the SONA. Very classy, Mr. Roxas. Very classy indeed. By the way, is schmoozing with street protestors part of that job description that defines your claim to your salary as senator of our fair land?
At least de Venecia and Erap stepped up to blabber away some kind of platitudinal response in their defense. But then too bad, guys. You were on the wrong side of the podium at an unpopular politician’s moment of glory and are relegated to pathetic schoolyard-grade comebacks after the fact. To speculate a bit on the esteemed Mar Roxas’s thoughts, I could imagine him hopping up and down inside yelling Tang ina mo! while smiling before the cameras.
The real point here is that this small two-minute sample of “responses” dished out (two verbal, and one grandstanded) by three otherwise powerful men standing outside the kulambo on Bandila this morning could easily represent the entire collective “position” of today’s Philippine “Opposition”:
“We were mis-represented”.
“Don’t believe in all those lies“.
- and most original of all -
“We are one with the rallying-man-on-the-street”.
Don’t be too surprised if every critical word uttered by the “Opposition” in response to the SONA does not fail to crystallise around the above three pillars of “wisdom”, folks. Because you are looking pretty much at the full-extent of the Filipino’s faculties for imagination.
As Ben Kritz observes in his latest blog post:
[T]he real issue is: now what?
(my italics)
There is a simple approach to answering that question, ladies and gentlemen of the Philippine “Opposition” (whether you are “united”, “genuine”, or the usual fragmented and clueless bunch of bozos you’ve traditionally been, whatever). Unfortunately for us, it requires a bit of brain-related work to cobble together. It’s called a platform. Sure you can tell us that God “commanded” you to lead us out of our wretchedness or that you have the “mandate of the people” (in whatever way you choose to substantiate that quaint claim). Indeed, you can even go on and do any of the following:
Cite the dimwitted House or Senate bills you’ve authored.
Dish out quaint platitudes about how things “should” or “must” be in our society.
- and/or -
Quote how much money “should” or “must” be spent (usually as percentages of the budget or the GDP) on this or that initiative or area of human development that all these no-added-value SWS “surveys” highlight.
The trackrecord for making such lofty pronouncements reads out like the sad stocktake of Filipino thinking that it really is.
So guess what…
Any moron can do all that;
… in the same way that any three-year-old can write out an unstructured wishlist of toys that would likely end up in a postal bin of letters addressed to Santa Claus.
Adults on the other hand, take a pre-meditated and conscious path towards achieving their objectives and acquiring what they aspire for. Not surprisingly, those who don’t, are usually prime candidates for ending up grasping society’s short end of the stick.
So in that noble undertaking of becoming a leader in a society that desperately needs to change in order to prosper, what separates the men from the boys is the ability to come up with a coherent blueprint or architecture for doing so, underpinned by an internally-consistent framework of thinking.
Sounds like a tall order? Of course it does. It does to those who have never acquired the habit of thinking things through properly.
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July 28, 2009 at 10:35 am
the stale and shallow utterances of the opposition “bigwigs”, e.g. erap, de venecia, roxas, legarda, in reaction to the president’s speech, tell more about the bankruptcy of their ideas than the validity and credibility of their criticism.
July 28, 2009 at 11:05 am
i give credit to whoever helped conceptualize the speech-well written and provided “some humor” and “entertainment” to us all.
the essence of which, is another story.
July 28, 2009 at 11:28 am
come hell or high water, you just can’t give the president credit for anything, right, dude?
July 28, 2009 at 11:53 am
heheh. a petty quarrel between the pot and the kettle.
July 28, 2009 at 12:27 pm
i just did, bencard :)
July 28, 2009 at 1:08 pm
There is charisma and lack thereof.
I fear Erap has it, in a drunken face in the pork pie look,
belching out the people’s wisdom,
and Roxas can’t buy it for all the money in the world.
Joe
July 28, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Any moron can dismiss those who dismiss the SONA.
July 28, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Any moron can post a comment like “Any moron can dismiss those who dismiss the SONA.” But can any moron substantiate (in the brilliant way that, say, I do) their dismissal of said morons who dismiss said SONA?
Think things through properly, dude. :-D
July 28, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Any moron can claim he is brilliant and capable of thinking things through.
August 3, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Nice quip b!
July 28, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Those who counted how many minutes it all took GMA to say her valedictory and how many times the applauses were given interveningly failed to count how many words the full text of the SONA did have divided into the English and the Tagalog, why this?
July 28, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Thus, Primer. The answer is, Thus.
July 28, 2009 at 11:31 pm
and once you find out the answer to “why this”, what next?
July 28, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Any moron can applaud the SONA.
July 28, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Any moron can VOTE into office those who applaud said SONA.
July 28, 2009 at 1:48 pm
benigz, I hope you are not referring to my Manoy Bencard.
July 28, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Kidding aside, the sona, being the 9th and the last, took to the reverse mood – left the unsettling challenge of a possible “perpetuity in power” what with those spelled out legislative agenda for those who stood by her all throughout her watch.
July 28, 2009 at 1:53 pm
We can find it hilarious, perhaps, that GMA said – “At the end of this speech, I shall step down from this stage … but not from the Presidency.”
July 28, 2009 at 2:24 pm
The quintessential lame duck statement!
July 28, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Well think about what you just said for a minute, Bert. The Philippine Vote is the great Equaliser. Whether you are a moron or a nuclear physicist, your vote carries equal weight.
So, I guess tough luck to whoever votes for who.
Ganun talaga ang buhay sa ’sang bansang nakakulong sa demokrasya. :-D
July 28, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Think again, Benigz. The Philippines is a good place to live. The Filipino people is a good race and democracy is a good kind of government. The fact that Philippines votes carry equal weight is a good thing because it does not discriminates against race, mental, or, physical acumen.
Of course you will disagree with all of these. Yes?
July 28, 2009 at 11:33 pm
one thing about equal opportunity votes – fools keep on voting for kleptocrats then blame the government – hindi lang nation of servants… nation of fools pa talaga :)
July 29, 2009 at 1:35 am
“The Filipino people is a good race…”
Disagree.
If that’s true, they wouldn’t have voted a swaggering drunkard to office, become banned from Hong Kong shops that they regularly shoplift from, or steal from U.S. banks by escaping back home to avoid paying back their loans. Well, the two last items are things I hear on the streets, but the first item is undeniable.
I said somewhere else that the Philippines is beautiful… it’s just the people that aren’t.
Everything else you said, agree.
July 28, 2009 at 3:00 pm
And so this other one will be lameduck statement – “Some say that after this SONA, it will be politics. Sorry, but there’s more work …” as well as this yet another – “My term does not end until next year”, aren’t they so blackshama?
July 28, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Tell me then, Mr. Buencamino:
Which part of my stuff do you feel is un-brilliant and NOT thought through?
Cite specific examples, plez.
And remember:
Any moron can make assertions without finding the need to substantiate them. :-D
July 28, 2009 at 10:48 pm
“Any moron can make assertions without finding the need to substantiate them.”
And that, my dear Dr Phil, is what you’re all about.
July 28, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Actually, Bert, it is only in the SECOND item that I disagree:
(1) I agree that the Philippines is a good place to live — if Filipinos hadn’t turned it to sh1t, that is.
(2) I disagree that the Filipino people is “a good race” because “Filipino” is NOT a race. It is a nationality.
(3) I agree that democracy is a good kind of government; that is, if Filipinos can apply it properly.
It’s simple, really™.
July 28, 2009 at 3:31 pm
It looks like one can only be authoritative about the Sona – if and only if – he can discuss at more length all that have been touched by GMA in her valedictory.
But how conveniently strange that one can pretend to either defend it or reject it absent that kind and level of grasp. There is really such thing as “writing for its own sake”, I guess. And perhaps, readers have reason to complain, if they do.
July 28, 2009 at 10:56 pm
One can write about
the trees..
and the roots..
and the leaves…
and the ants..
and the bugs..
and one.. can write about
.. the forest.
July 28, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Primer matahal ko nang suspetsa ito, Ikaw ba si Arnel Salgado?
July 28, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Unfortunately, no matter how good the SONA, we cannot better things with it. We are still in a mess.
Dictators or would be Dictators electrified the public with their
speeches. Any Demagogue can do that. My dog can also electrify the
crowd by its barks and dancings.
You can see in old videos the struting confidence of the Dictator Mussolini of Italy. The pistol firing on the air of the late Dictator Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The tantalizing gaze and speeches of the Dictator Hitler of Germany. The charming of the crowd of the late Evita Peron of Argentina. Evita Peron goes to the balcony of her Pink Palace. Shout to the crowd:”we salute you, decamisados”, Or ” we salute you, shirtless ones”. While her arms were laden with gold bracelets and diamonds. Too much hypocrisy on tremendous scale already. We just want the real thing…
July 28, 2009 at 11:46 pm
the crowds behave like dogs anyway.
they don’t want to behave like human beings who take responsibility and accountability – so treat them like dogs, show em a bone, have em roll over, give em a pat in the back, and if they go unruly, whip em.
homeland pinoys will do just that – all you need to be their president is to know how to treat dogs well. become president and change the anthem to “who let the dogs out” arf arf arf
July 29, 2009 at 3:05 am
“There are no tyrants, where there are no slaves”.
Jose Rizal
Mational Hero
August 1, 2009 at 3:12 am
Benigno,
Do you remember when a sitting President of the Republic was schmoozing with street demonstrators? Before the Senate voted to reject the extension of the American bases treaty; then incumbent President Cory Aquino personally led a (ultimately futile) street demonstration in front of the Senate building (now Philippine Museum) to convince the Senate that a majority of the Filipinos wanted the American bases to stay.
I’m not that big a fan of Roxas but by itself, schmoozing with street protestors doesn’t appear bad. Legislators are supposed to know the concerns of their people. Congressman Charles Rangel may or may not have problems of his own but his constituents don’t seem to mind his schmoozing with street protestors.
Just in case the linked post survives moderation- http://filipinovoices.com/the-hat-of-common-sense/comment-page-1#comment-79502