Method in the madness - Sketches

For those of you with a penchant for Johnnie Walker Blue, here's a sobering thought: President Erap may not understand, or does not realize the impact, of what he's saying.

At the National Prayer Breakfast last Wednesday, he had this to say: "I am glad this religious undertaking comes at a time when the whole nation is facing the difficult trials of economic and political problems. I need not dispute nor deny the displeasure of many regarding the crisis that grips the country at present."

If the nation is in crisis at present, who brought it to this sorry state of affairs? President Erap probably saw that question being raised only upon waking up yesterday morning.

So for most of the daylight hours yesterday, he was fuming that his statement was taken out of context. As he assured the business community that he was not flip-flopping, he announced that the nation was not in crisis.

And he probably thought another statement yesterday was reassuring: "People tend to see only the seeming madness, but not the method behind the seeming madness. They see the turbulence of the surface of the river but not the steady, determined flow of the water underneath. Should my government offer less day-to-day excitement? Perhaps. But that would mean offering more day-to-day boredom."

Why do I get the feeling that the Philippines is lost in Wonderland?

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One sensible comment yesterday came from Sen. Juan Flavier. I don't know if he heard about the "method behind the seeming madness" speech, but Flavier said the President should blame his administration's mess on his speech writers.

Flavier said these speech writers made the President promise the moon and the stars to his masa -- the eradication of poverty, for example, and the disappearance of street children by the end of his term in 2004 (at the rate we're going, this promise will be fulfilled by turning the street kids into desaparecidos -- the "disappeared").

But then again, shouldn't you read and understand the contents of a speech first before delivering it? President Erap is known to memorize a speech before delivery, if only to make sure no one laughs at his pronunciation, to get the slur out, to see if he likes the message. When he said the nation was bankrupt at the start of his term, surely he understood what he was saying since that part was in Filipino -- "bangkarote." Surely a President knows what "crisis" and "bankruptcy" mean.

Woe to the President who doesn't understand. And woe to us!

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President Erap may recruit a succession of speech writers, but he's the final editor of anything he says. If the President can veto the budget, why can't he edit his own speech?

During Fidel Ramos' tenure, all the texts of his speeches had to be checked against delivery because he edited them heavily and digressed widely as he spoke.

Corazon Aquino had a series of brainstorming sessions with her Cabinet members before a major speech was finalized by a speech writer. She made sure she would say what she wanted to say, so we didn't get the ugly spectacle of presidential flip-flopping.

I don't know if President Erap has similar brainstorming sessions. With his Cabinet members and advisers at each other's throats, he probably thinks it's not worth the bother.

Malacañang can follow Flavier and blame the speech writers. But this can indicate that the President does not understand his pronouncements, that he's nothing more than a talking head mouthing words from the TelePrompTer.

It's been just two weeks since the President vowed "clear goals, coherent policies and consistent directions" in his administration.

Yesterday, he told businessmen: "We meet at a time when the business sector is bothered by what it perceives to be a lack of direction, or flip-flopping, or drift, and of wrong-headed policies on the part of the government. I believe the perception should be corrected."

I'm afraid he'll be spending much of his time trying to correct this perception. We see only madness here. There's no need for the press to destabilize this administration. We just print the President's pronouncements verbatim.