After a total of nearly 100 speeches to hundreds or thousands at a time, I had come to know my pitch like the back of my... feet (strangely, I stare at my toes more than I ever look at my hand). My sortie “presentations” are always about 30 minutes to an hour long depending on the crowd and regardless of my mood. I studied and chose my lines, anecdotes and narratives well — I think. I consistently got the desired responses and inspired interaction crucial to message penetration and retention. But then, again, who knows?
Several times I felt like fainting on stage from the heat and exhaustion and I would miss a line or two from the usual monologue. I always manage to get back to the lines, determined to get the message out even if it meant I walk on-stage on all fours. (My thought bubble: Would it be okay to just collapse right here and now? I’m sure they’ll understand...hmmm, wow, sympathy votes! But, wait, oh no. I have three more of this to do and we’re running late!) I believe I subconsciously put in some parts into my pro-forma presentation that would entertain me, keep me smiling and help me survive each and every time. I resort to some of my favorites. “Itaas ang kamay, lahat ng maraming utang!” I swear the audiences always respond overwhelmingly. Hands come up like a wave in a baseball stadium. And, as most poor Pinoys do to mask their poverty and misfortunes, they all start laughing. Or, “Magaling ba kayo mag-matematiks? Addition at subtraction?” I would ask. “Oo!!!” they would shout back. “O sige nga! Kung isanlibong piso ang budget niyo sa dalawang araw at dumaan ito sa mga kurakot sa gobyerno mula sa taas hanggang baba, magkano nalang ang matitira sa inyo, aber?” It’s hilarious, it’s uncanny. They almost always shout back, “Pisooooo!” We all laugh again. Well, mirrored with as sorry a situation as ours in this country, what else can you do?
I have found myself listening to speeches by politicians in sorties and, often a victim of boredom, attention deficiency sets in by precisely the third minute. I think this is the reason why I stick to the formula of resorting back to my favorite laughables. Most, if not all, politicians during election campaigns, say much of the same thing. Funny. While most candidates or their surrogates would most probably hitch on this particular word — I have avoided it all together in my speeches. “Change.” “Pagbabago.”
Oh, sure. I’ve seen “change.” Being one of those cub reporters in the ‘80s — those who were so privileged as to see and be in the last years of President Ferdinand Marcos towards the victorious contender Corazon Aquino — I was witness to when this word was practically born in the Philippines. I’d also seen this “change” in infancy grow up to be some unrecognizable seven-headed monster. Change changed. Too many of those heroes of change, well, changed. Clenched fists up in the air demanding accountability and renewal transformed into open hands with palms facing up waiting on the next hefty bribe. Mentors became the tormentors. The press became the oppressors. Kaibigans and kamag-anaks continued to rule the world. Street parliamentarians became corrupt local government officials. Businessmen who financed the victors played along and danced to whatever the tune was, making sure to the monopoly of the spoils of their acumen. Still unchecked, Customs, the BIR, Subic Freeport and just about all executive departments remain playgrounds to the thieves. Law enforcers, law breakers — can’t tell the difference. I take it back. Change didn’t change. Change died. Almost as soon as it was born.
I have my audience’s attention for a full 30 minutes talking about their lives and how we turn tragedy into comedy — and then we play games to laugh and cheer. They love stories about Mar and me. “Alam niyo ang Honey ko, napakahigpit yumakap, malagkit ang halik, siya pa ang naghihimay para sa akin ng alimango at hipon,” I say, mimicking the pitch of one of those voice-over characters in Korean telenovelas. The crowds cheer, laugh, truly tickled pink. They like talking about love, romance, anecdotes. They seem to be allergic to the word, “pagbabago.” When I start talking about “pagbabago” I sense eyes wandering, heads turning to seatmates to start a chat, cardboard fans fluttering faster. It took only two tries for me to figure that what it is that turns me off, turns them off as well. People know that “change” has died. No use talking about the dead.
It would seem the only way to make people believe again is to reinvent the word. And the only way it seems that we can reinvent the word is to actually do it and make people see it, feel it. Big strokes. Sweeping transformations. Upheaval. A sustained revolution.
Only then would a resurrection of the dead be believable. Gee, I suppose that means we want and need and hope to have a genuine miracle. After May 10, could this truly be it?
I go back to a pre-presidency speech of Corazon Aquino in 1986: “I believe that a people get a government they deserve. But I also believe that we deserve a government better than what we have today.”
I have yet to be convinced of ever again using the word “change” in any of my speeches. I find it unbearably cliché to even use it in casual conversation. In the same speech Mrs. Aquino also said, “Sobra na! Tama Na! Palitan Na!” Hmmm.
Ferdinand Marcos before her, in his inaugural speech, said, “It is our destiny to transform this nation, we begin by transforming ourselves first... There are many things we do not want about our world. Let us not mourn them. Let us change them.” Okayyyy...
Fidel Ramos? “The change dawning in the 21st Century requires us to put greater emphasis on education. And we can do this because we are our own masters and we know better what it takes to make progress and sustain it.” Not quite, huh?
And Gloria Arroyo, the one with the most SONAS delivered: “ Every year, every President tells Congress that it is the last chance for meaningful change. This time I will say it again, adding only that past Presidents were right and that each time change doesn’t happen — makes change harder and less likely to happen the next time around. The time for change is well past due. This time, let me say, let’s just do it?” Yeaaah, right.
I rest my case.