We’ve all heard of haunted houses. But haunted speeches?
“My life—as an artist, at least—can be charted as precisely as a fever: the highs and lows, the very definite cycles.” - Truman Capote
The same can be said of a President’s term of office (or life in general, if you wish to be a stickler for philosophical detail). The rollercoaster ride. Treks over rough terrain. Delusions that go bump in the night. They all come with the runaround we call leadership, the cycle of its rise and its fall.
I can only imagine how lonely it is at the top. Extremely frustrating, too, to not know who to trust while bearing in mind an impossible mission: To be the firebrand of hope and the heir of a country’s grief all in one go.
Former President Noynoy Aquino said something to that effect in his inaugural address six years ago. Little did he know that his words would rise like an apparition that would haunt his administration.
A closer reading of Aquino’s inaugural speech brings us to his first grievance, the arrow that jump-started a reformation that would end all attempts at reform:
“Have you ever been ignored by the very government you helped put in power? I have. Have you had to endure being rudely shoved aside by the siren-blaring escorts of those who love to display their position and power over you? I have, too. Have you experienced exasperation and anger at a government that instead of serving you, needs to be endured by you? So have I. I am like you […] Today marks the end of a regime indifferent to the appeals of the people.”
Funny that Aquino should mention government’s indifference—that dark specter of the evil we ended up facing. His own administration barely escaped the ghost of his inaugural speech.
And so, being the curious cat that I am, I went back in time, went back to the inaugural speeches delivered by some former chief executives.
I wondered if there were clues to this apparent haunting of inaugural speeches, this prophetic tone that exposes and surrenders us to the evils we decided to eradicate.
Two other Presidents seemed to have been haunted by their inaugural speeches.
Former President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos’ inaugural speech delivered on Dec. 30, 1965 at the Quirino Grandstand was one of two. With this quote he raised his first grievance, a premonition of the very ills Marcos himself would soon inspire.
“We have come upon a phase of our history when ideas are only a veneer for greed and power in public and private affairs, when devotion to duty and dedication to a public trust are to be weighed at all times against private advantages and personal gain, and when loyalties can be traded in the open market.”
Any and all who lived under Marcos’ dictatorship can attest to that ongoing veneer on which his dictatorship thrived.
His government of spectacle knew no bounds. He built his New Society on the very façade and “dedication” to public trust “that was weighed at all times against private advantages and personal gains.”
Crony leadership: that’s what he built—a financial lifeline to his friends and supporters in politics.
The very enemy he mentioned at the genesis of his speech ended as the crack in the skull which later toppled his dictatorship. Add to this a statement that seemed to foretell a people’s revolution:
“I have heard the cries of thousands and clasped hands in brotherhood with millions of you.” These millions would later turn against him.
Corazon Aquino’s inaugural speech at the Club Filipino on Feb. 25, 1986—the culmination of the People Power revolution—was delivered with a mere eight lines.
Her first sentences gave a vision of what was to be a serious fracture in the hull:
“It is fitting and proper that, as our people lost their rights and liberties at midnight fourteen years ago, the people should formally recover those lost rights and liberties in the full light of day.”
Where is the “full light of day” when her administration fell desperately shy of bringing closure to the murder of her own husband, former Sen. Ninoy Aquino Jr?
This sin of omission, I believe, is the curse that brought the Marcoses back into the halls power and the subsequent attempts by the same to rewrite history. Without closure, there is no burying the dictatorship’s curse and the people’s pain.
June 30, 2016, in what was probably one of the most inspiring speeches ever penned next to former Pres. Corazon Aquino’s keynote address in the U.S. Congress, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte hit the ground running as the 16th President of the Republic of the Philippines.
With more than 16 million votes and the hopes of millions of other Filipinos weighing on his shoulders, it would be safe to say that trust will be his strongest card. Duterte himself made that point clear by using it as his battle cry:
“There are many amongst us who advance the assessment that the problems that bedevil our country today which need to be addressed with urgency, are corruption, both in the high and low echelons of government, criminality in the streets, and the rampant sale of illegal drugs in all strata of Philippine society and the breakdown of law and order. True, but not absolutely so. For I see these ills as mere symptoms of a virulent social disease that creeps and cuts into the moral fiber of Philippine society. I sense a problem deeper and more serious than any of those mentioned or all of them put together. But of course, it is not to say that we will ignore them because they have to be stopped by all means that the law allows. Erosion of faith and trust in government—that is the real problem that confronts us.”
This goes without saying that trust in government will be the standard of Duterte’s leadership, or, as haunted inaugurals go, what could otherwise be an omen of his downfall.
As one writer put it, leaders fail as much in weakness as in excess, and our leaders own words often stand as the reason for their own undoing. What they promise with overkill will eventually kill their legacy in the end.
In the end there are no real haunted speeches, just leaders haunted by their own delusions of grandeur.
June 30, 2016 was the first day of the rest of the Filipino lives. I wish the new President the courage that we hope would see him through the test of his own claims. Their words and actions are their worst enemies.
*I will start using PHL(official acronym of the Republic of the Philippines) hashtags on my post, this is to represent my country and its history related posts, also I believe there are other Filipinos in Steemit community*
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