And I quote...

After spending a week without newspapers and being “out of touch”, I usually spend an hour doing catch-up by scanning a week’s worth of news. As expected the papers also went on a “fast” in terms of content and thickness. Even the classified ads section hardly had anything over Easter.

The only news item that caught my eye was the news report about Manny Pangilinan who gave a speech at the Ateneo Graduate School, which some techie exposed as a plagiarism of speeches and written work of several famous people such as Oprah, US President Obama and Rowling.

As a consequence, MVP issued an apology and gave his resignation to the board of Ateneo.

After reading the piece, I threw out the paper. There are far more important things of consequence than that incident. To begin with, it was out of character and simply something that MVP would not do. But I was not really interested to pursue the matter….Until the following evening, when the topic popped up at a party.

After replaying all the juicy details, someone expressed disbelief that Manny Pangilinan would be in such a mess. Other people chirped in that whoever wrote the speech was probably “so fired already”. A couple praised MVP for taking the bullet, while someone countered that Pangilinan should have fed the speechwriter to the wolves.

After listening intently to the impromptu “crisis analysis”, I tried to re-enact the incident. Imagine that you were Manny Pangilinan. Major business leader running PLDT, Smart, Channel 5, a couple of radio stations, and a string of other companies even I don’t know of. 

On top of this, you have your “public” commitments: Meetings with government leaders, politicians knocking on your door for campaign contributions or pre-paid cards for cellphones. Then you have a host of invitations as guest of honor where you need to give speeches.

Unfortunately, even the most creative and idealistic CEOs don’t have enough hours in the day to write their own speeches. So you rely on other people to do the right stuff, the same way you have managers to micro manage under you.

So just like any other 20-hour day, you’re now in your car being driven from one appointment to the next, you’ve been given “your speech”, you read it, you give it and then you get hell for it!

But what could have gone wrong? Most people who know Pangilinan close-up will tell you that he has a number of speechwriters and a writer made the Ateneo speech.

But if you were a trusted speechwriter of a major businessman and public figure would you risk your privileged life by blatantly copying large portions from speeches given by better-known people whose speeches are easily available on the web?

Or was something lost in the translation?

Do you recognize these symbols: “   ”

The tiny quotation mark used to be a very powerful symbol. Whenever you find it in a speech, an article or a news item, the reader is supposed to say: AND I QUOTE…

The tiny quotation mark is never used by itself when used in the printed form of a speech. Often if not always, writers are required to state or instruct the reader by writing… AND TO QUOTE…, or IN THE WORDS OF OPRAH….or….AND I QUOTE.

Unfortunately decades of English classes and trainings have failed to stand up against the “casual style” of today’s generation. In the cut and paste, text in haste world of today’s communicators, many people have ignored the rules and consequence that symbols hold.

Ironically MVP whose power and fame comes partly from acronyms, abbreviations and text messaging may have been its latest victim.

As unsavory as the incident may be, fairness dictates that we must first and always consider the character and track record of those we would judge. Had some people exercised fairness and exerted more effort “thinking”, chances are they could have written a more interesting story on the travails of so-called powerful men.

Most people simply can’t and don’t believe that Pangilinan could or would do such a thing. Unfortunately, many media competitors of Pangilinan have long practiced the art of “Shoot first, ask questions later”.

Issuing an apology in his case was not admission of a “crime” but rather his failure to live up to the expected standard of being in charge and accountable. Had MVP blamed a speechwriter, he would have “added insult to injury”, so instead he took the bullet by taking responsibility.

Sadly the words “When I do good no one remembers, when I do bad no one forgets” come to mind. You would think that those who profited from his good deeds or his unfortunate circumstance would at least be kind enough to even out the story or come to his defense.

Manny Pangilinan is not alone in this circumstance. At the height of basketball fever during the Marcos era, La Salle embraced businessman Danding Cojuangco as the “Patron” of basketball. There was nothing he could do wrong. But when People Power came in, many of those who filled the gyms and cheered the La Salle Varsity team turned against “The Boss” and overnight everything he ever did was wrong. 

Let’s not forget Atenean Joseph Ejercito Estrada, branded as a kick out, embraced as a success story when he became President and then rejected upon impeachment.

And I quote: “weather weather lang yan”.