PNoy fine tunes speech for first SONA

Tacloban City (July 25) — President Benigno Aquino III has been going over and fine-tuning his speech for his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the opening of the 15th Congress on July 26.

President Aquino is reported to stick with his laid-back, no frills style and will speak from the heart using simple language.

The speech is already on its fourth draft and undergoing double fact-checking by some Cabinet members as well as a review by the President himself, according to a Palace source.

While his inaugural speech sought to inspire, the SONA will be dealing with the “harsh realities” facing the country, and will be more “down to earth,” the source said.

President Aquino will be reporting on the state of the government coffers’ finances, and will spell out the programs he plans to undertake to stamp out corruption and ease poverty, Malacañang officials said.

The 30-minute speech will be delivered mostly in Filipino, interspersed with English.

“While he’s in the Batasang Pambansa, he’ll be addressing the people. So he must use a language understandable to a greater number of people for better understanding,” Secretary Sonny Coloma of the Communications Group said.

As the President pronounced during his Inaugural Address, the true bosses are the Filipino people who chose their leaders, hence it is but fitting that his speech be addressed to them in a language that is understood by all.

President Aquino has been very “methodical” in his preparations for the SONA, the Palace source said.

To help prepare for the SONA, the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) conducted a survey among different sectors in all the regions to find out what issues people wanted the President to address in the SONA, according to Secretary Coloma. (PIA