President Aquino chides his ‘tardy’ speechwriters in public

Manila Times/MakatiUnhappy with the speech prepared for him for a Malacanang event, President Benigno Aquino 3rd gave his speechwriters a dressing down in public. Aquino was late for about 40 minutes at the ceremonial signing of two economic bills at the palace on Tuesday.In his speech, Aquino said the material prepared by his speechwriters was not suited for the two landmark economic bills.“I had to give a lecture on economics, that’s why I am late,” Aquino said.This was not the first time the president has criticised the palace speechwriting group during a public engagement.On May 13, Aquino criticised his speechwriters for not preparing early his speech for the turnover of the government-owned and controlled corporations’ dividends in Malacanang.The president’s speeches are prepared by a group supervised by Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning (PCDSPO) undersecretary Manolo Quezon 3rd. It will be a full house when President Benigno Aquino 3rd delivers his sixth and last State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday. House of representatives secretary general Marilyn Yap said a president’s first and last SONAs are always crowd-drawers based on House records.Since it is Aquino’s final address, the house expects more than 3,000 people to attend the event.“It has been observed that more people come here for the first SONA of the sitting president or the last SONA of an outgoing president. The maximum capacity of the plenary is at 2,750 but we would also have monitors and seats outside for people who can’t be accommodated,” Yap told reporters in a briefing.She said many former lawmakers have also signified their intention to attend the SONA.The House will spend P2.3mn for the annual event. The money will be used to buy food for the guests, especially members of the diplomatic corps, the traditional lunch for House members, and meals for around 9,000 members of the security force who will be deployed inside and around the 17-hectare Batasang Pambansa complex.President Aquino has signed a law establishing the country’s ‘Open High School System’ that will benefit out of school youths and adults.Republic Act 10665, or the alternative secondary education programme, provides access to education through the open learning modality.The new law will “enable the youth to overcome personal, geographical, socioeconomic and physical constraints, to encourage them to complete secondary education”.It covers public high school institutions to practice open learning through self-instructional materials, and multi-channel learning and school-family-community partnership.It will be available to all youth and adults who completed elementary education and high school qualifiers of the Philippine Educational Placement Test, and the Alternative Learning System, Accreditation and Equivalency Test.The Open High School System will adopt the K-to-12 enhanced basic education curriculum using the standards and learning competencies of different subject areas of the programme.The department of education will administer the programme and create an Open High School system unit to assist the department in performing its functions.President Aquino.