The SONA and self-flagellation

I don’t know who started this State of the Nation Address thing, but I am sure it is not us. We probably just copied it from the Americans. And like everything else we copied from them, we took it much further than the original.

 I can understand and accept the fanfare that surrounds a presidential inaugural, and the rapt attention given to the inaugural speech by a president. But a State of the Nation Address, as the name suggests, is not something that should be particularly interesting.

 As the annual report of the president, it is a speech about which we already know the full details of. Just as we don’t need a weatherman to tell us which way the wind blows, so do we not need someone in Malacañang to tell us if there is food on the table tonight.

 In other words, the State of the Nation Address is not expected to tell us something we do not already know. It is just a reiteration of generalizations crafted in such a way as to make the president sound good and look presidential.

 State of the Union Addresses, as they are called in the United States from which we copied the practice, do not stir the same kind of frenzied attention and preparation that they do over here.

 Troops are not put on red alert. There is no virtual military lockdown in the US capital. Washington D.C. does not become a garrison state. Security preparations are but a normal law enforcement matter. Any extraordinary means to protect the president go on behind the scenes.

 And while everybody dresses appropriately, there is no Oscars-like red carpet atmosphere that attends Philippine State of the Nation Addresses. Here, how one dresses for the affair seems more important than the substance of the speech itself.

 State of the Nation Addresses are such a big deal in the Philippines because Filipinos are a people that put great emphasis on, and are easily captivated by, posture and form. Dress smartly and speak in a loud voice. Never mind if you stole the dress or talk nonsense.

 And I am not talking of Noynoy Aquino who is expected to deliver his State of the Nation Address this afternoon. I am talking about our great preoccupation with the State of the Nation Address, which if it had been so important we would not have reduced to a mere acronym: SONA.

 All the SONAs ever delivered by all our previous presidents have been remarkable in their worthlessness. Name one SONA by one particular president that stands out in faithfulness between delivery of speech and execution of promises.

 Instead, all previous SONAs have been noteworthy only in bombast and spectacle, in sound and symbol, but none of which anyone can put a finger on as having remotely influenced changes that made the lives of those who heard them meaningfully better.

 Yet we continue to be agog over the SONA. We prepare and make provisions on where we might watch the live tv coverage of the speech. It is like a Manny Pacquiao fight or an NBA game, the only difference being that the above are far more substantial and consequential.

 I myself have seen to it that I will be able to watch it. I want to hear what Noynoy has to say even if I do not expect him to say anything that can assuage the growing concern among a growing number of Filipinos that their lives are not getting any better.

So, why do Filipinos pay too much rapt attention on the SONA? We love the SONA because, as I said, we love posture and form. We love them in their many manifestations, but none more so than in the ritualistic spectacle of the SONA. We love self-flagellation.