Marcos trims SONA to save time, hints at topics for next address

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said he needed to leave several topics out of his fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) to save on time, as the speech was already running too long. In a vlog posted on his YouTube channel on Saturday, Marcos reflected on his penultimate SONA speech delivered nearly two weeks ago, sharing how his speech was written and how he prepared. "We had a lot of things that we needed not to remove because it was too long. So just wait for them in the next SONA," Marcos said. Drafting the speech began weeks before he delivered it in Congress, the President said. Marcos said he primarily wrote the first and the last parts of his speech, while his team did the research that supplied the details, such as statistics, events and more. Marcos said the fine-tuning lasted until the very last moment, and even as he was delivering the speech. "The truth is when my speech was out, I was still changing things while I was talking. So when I think about something I could say better, that is what I say." In his vlog, Marcos read letters from people who wanted him to include certain topics in his SONA. He emphasized that just because these topics were not said in his SONA, it does not mean that these are not important. One of the letters he read was from Aliyah Mae Lozari, the convener of Youth for Health Coalition. She requested that Marcos acknowledge in his speech the health problems that the youth faced, which included hunger. In response, Marcos touted the Walang Gutom Program, an anti-hunger initiative from the Department of Social Welfare and Development that gives qualified, impoverished families food credits worth P3,000 a month. He also said that there were feeding programs in schools. Marcos also said the Executive branch is providing funds to local government units so these could provide affordable rice to Filipinos in need. Throughout the vlog, Marcos made no mention of the heavier topics he tackled during his penultimate SONA, which included the announcement of corruption charges against his own cousin, former Speaker and incumbent Leyte representative Marin Romualdez. — VDV, GMA News