Andanar: Ad-libs made Duterte's SONA more personal

MANILA, Philippines — Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar on Monday said the ad-libs of President Rodrigo Duterte in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) were very helpful.

 

Andanar noted that past presidents usually addressed members of the Senate, House of Representatives and the diplomatic corps during their SONA but Duterte also touched the Filipino masses in his speech.

 

"Ad-libs made it more personal. The president, he has this magic touch with the masses" Andanar told members of the press in an ambush interview after Duterte's SONA.

 

Andanar added that the ad-libs were the president's prerogative, which made the speech longer than expected.

 

The Communications secretary earlier said that the first SONA would only be 38 minutes long but it lasted for about one and a half hour due to the ad-libs.

 

"Siguro yung 15 pages na yun ay naging 45 pages so abangan na lang ang magiging transcript namin bukas," the Cabinet member said 

 

Andanar revealed that Duterte gave them two speeches during his rehearsal at his home in Davao City.

 

The first speech contained ad-libs and side comments while the second followed the original script.

 

"The way that we rehearsed the speech in Davao mirrors the way that the president delivered his State of the Nation Address here in Congress so it's exactly the same manner that he delivered to us," Andanar said, referring to the speech with ad-libs.

 

Andanar admitted that they were not sure which speech the president would deliver up to the last minute.

 

"I did expect the adlibs but I did not expect it to be this long," Andanar said.