Pnoy’s speeches, writers (2)

PRESIDENT Aquino's complaint about his communication strategy and, later, an "inadequate" speech from his "normally gifted" writers apparently overlooks one thing: how he delivers his speeches.

We all see it on TV: how he wades into the text, full speed, scarcely pausing or changing pitch for emphasis or to have meaning sink in, not connecting with anyone in the audience, and looking at the teleprompter from left to right, back and forth, until he says, Thank you.

How about watching him in person, not at a TV screen? I saw him from second row when he spoke before the 16th National Press Forum of the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) April 23 last year in Trade Winds Hotel in Pasay City, in which he deplored bad news in media and asked for balance.

Same thing. He projected in person the same blandness as he does on TV.

Good writing helps the speech a lot but so does good delivery.

Cory Aquino

I was with a group of Filipino journalists who on Sept. 18, 1986 watched PNoy's mother Corazon Aquino address a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington D.C.

She had the advantage of a historic moment (just after People Power 1 and her election as president), a finely crafted speech by Teddyboy Locsin, and the kind of delivery that showed she understood and meant what she said.

PNoy suggested there's failure to communicate from his Malacañang wordsmiths. The speech writing and the delivery must have something to do with it. Except for slogans and sound bites, people remember little from his speeches.