‘Just tell the story.’
This is an excerpt from The World We Wanted, an essay I wrote for Heroes, the book commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1986 Edsa Revolution, edited by Alfred Yuson.
Arguably the height of Locsin’s Malacañang experience was President Aquino’s speech to the joint Houses of the United States Congress.
“I had to prepare 22 speeches. I was still writing speeches on Saturday, and we were leaving on Monday. Then Cory said, ‘Anything I say is going to work. Just tell the story. I had my husband, and we were free. Then I lost my husband, and we were not free.’
“I remember writing the line, ‘Americans spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to those who did not want it.’ The Filipinos did it not for clothes or food. What money they had, they gave to the campaign. We didn’t owe anyone. The speech ended with Cory saying, ‘Thank you, America, for the three happiest years of my life.’ The years with Ninoy in Boston. It was simple, but effective.
“I read the speech on the plane to the professional diplomats. They said, ‘That speech doesn’t make her sound presidential. It makes her sound like a person.’ In Washington, Secretary of State George Schultz gave Mrs. Aquino the use of his teleprompter. When she rehearsed her speech, the only other people present were the Filipino-American teleprompter operator and myself. And the Secret Service agents. Mrs. Aquino read the speech, and there were tears on the faces of the Secret Service agents. She looked at me and said, ‘I think this speech is going to work.'”
That famous speech very nearly vanished from history. The night before President Aquino addressed the US Congress, there was a ball. “George Schultz wore a Cory doll pinned to his lapel,” Locsin recalls. “For some reason I had a bad feeling. I left the ball and took a taxi back to the Madison Hotel. When I got there I asked to see the teleprompter. It had disappeared. No one knew where it was! We looked all over the place. Finally the teleprompter was found. I had it turned on—and there was an entirely different speech in it. The Department of Foreign Affairs had prepared a new speech. I threw a fit. Put the speech back! Do you know what will happen when she looks at the teleprompter and sees a speech she’s never seen before?!”
The speech was restored.
As long as everyone’s remarking on Teddy Boy Locsin’s emotional TV appearance, this is my chance to embarrass the man. The great thing about having Teddy Boy Locsin for a mentor is that he doesn’t require you to agree with him. He wants you to take the opposing view and defend it with brainpower reinforced with literary allusions and historical references unfamiliar to him. To paraphrase Dune, he wants you to employ the feint within the feint within the feint. He also taught us, his newsroom children, that if you can dish it out, you have to eat it. Wimps can’t be journalists.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
August 4th, 2009 at 08:50
hi jessica.
why didnt fidel ramos just sign on a separate page? and is that a heart sign in red ink?
thanks.
August 5th, 2009 at 23:27
its time teddy boy locsin take a more active role in politics.and i mean not just by being an elected official. i dont know if he is by nature a quiet man, but if he wants to honor Cory, he owes it to her to be more vocal about the state of our affairs. To me, he is not visible enough.