I had the benefit of being an active member of Toastmasters Clubs for almost two decades. Active membership meant not only attending meetings of other clubs wherever my modest law practice brought me like the cities of Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Ilo-ilo, and Zamboanga, but more importantly evaluating the speeches of speakers with diverse cultural backgrounds, different disciplines, and dissimilar idiosyncrasies in as plausibly objective view point as can be achieved within the parameters set forth by Toastmasters Club manuals ranged against my own personal biases and prejudice. When serving Malacañang, I, in order to combat gnawing homesickness, became also an active member of clubs in Metro Manila that gave me the opportunity of attending at least, two meetings daily, Monday thru Friday.
In all candidness, I do not claim to be anywhere near being a master of peeking thru the minds of other people listening to their speeches. Random and unprogrammed activities do not make up for a systematic approach to education. But, humility aside, from the Toastmaster's experience I assayed above, I learned somehow to discern some inner sentiments of people from keenly listening to their spoken language, carefully observing their accompanying gestures, facial expressions, voice variations and so forth and so on. That little experience was handy as I listened, last Friday, to two of our country's highest leaders, namely, His Excellency, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and Hon. Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, Secretary, Department of the Interior and Local Government.
It did not escape my observation that the president was, as usual, uninspiring. The quality of voice was (still is) not bad but it was his monotony that was (also still is) deathly boring. However, last Friday, Pres Aquino succeeded somewhat to drive home the specifics of his much-awaited endorsement of the presidential aspirations of his cabinet secretary. His administrative, and therefore, professional, points even appeared to be so much based on his personal relations with the DILG secretary that it would have been most fitting occasion to deliver, for once, his speech without his total reliance upon a prompter. Beyond that cruel superficial assessment of the president's speaking ineffectiveness, I say nothing further because he is, for purposes of this article, mainly, passé.
On the other hand, I will partly highlight on his endorsee for presidential candidacy in the 2016 elections of the Liberal Party. As we all know, there are, so far, 2 announced aspirants for president, namely, the United National Alliance (UNA) bet in Vice President Jejomar Binay and, yes, Secretary Roxas. Of the two and if elections were held today, I would cast my vote in favor of the latter, largely because of what I saw on tv last Friday.
First, the speech of Secretary Roxas was studiously well crafted. For the occasion, it was complete, not over-flowing. If, owing to public demands he was too busy that he had to engage a speech writer to put it in that final form, the presidentiable made sure that the writer understood fully what he wanted to say.
Secretary Roxas emoted quite fully his profound respects for his dear departed brother, father, and grandfather. He sounded like swearing by their grave to promote the interest of our people, if so privileged and unless he is a congenital liar, (which I think, he is not) that's an extremely burdensome vow to make. Indeed, the trustworthy men I know are those who honor the memory of their deceased parents and loved ones.
Second. That tears seemed to well from his eyes showed that like many of us, he is a human being capable of hearing the murmurs of the heart. He effectively slew the demon of a perception that he is aloof and by reason of having grown in a high gilded tower, he is inaccessible to the ordinary mortals. Truly, until last Friday, I thought he was "elitist" and far removed from the millions he wanted to serve. Thank God, Secretary Roxas' controlled sob made him reachable to us, after all.
Third. He made effective use of pauses to gather his thoughts and compose himself as to veer away from what could have been an embarrassingly crying act. Yes, he paused to be able to move forward. It was a classic display of reasoned relentlessness a character I would like my president to possess.
I am sure there are those who do not agree with these observations of mine. Let me assure them that I have still about ten months to either validate my initial thoughts or reject them.