ang boses ng boss (the voice of the boss): determining the boss in president benigno aquino iii‘s...

Determining the Boss in P-NOY’s SONA

1

Running Head: DETERMINING THE BOSS IN P-NOY‘S SONA

Ang Boses ng Boss: Determining the Boss in President Benigno Aquino III‘s

State of the Nation Address (SONA) through Transitivity Analysis

Irish C. Sioson

September 2011


2

Summary

The State of the Nation Address (SONA, henceforth) is a yearly President‘s

report of the government‘s accomplishments, plans and overall directions of the state

addressed to the citizens. This study examines the SONA of President Benigno Aquino

III, or P-NOY as he is commonly referred to, delivered on July 25, 2011 at the Batasan

Pambansa Complex.

The speech may be divided into three major parts: 1) achievement which

describes the government‘s efforts and accomplishments in different sectors for the past

year, 2) plans which outlines the future actions to be undertaken by the government,

and 3) message to Filipinos which is a direct address of a personal message, appeal

and/or challenge to Filipinos. Apparently, the overall idea being conveyed by the speech

is that while the Philippines still has problems that need solutions, the government is

exerting serious efforts to address such problems and has demonstrated success in

dealing with some of these issues. Finally, the speech ends with an affirmation of what

Filipinos can do and leaves a challenge to the audience to become heroes in their own

way.

Theoretical Framework

In this study, I used MAK Halliday‘s (1985 in Halliday & Matthiesen, 2004)

systemic grammar which focuses on the use of language in terms of its functions in a

particular situation. According to Halliday, language has three functions:1) the ideational

which deals with the content or meaning in a text, 2) interpersonal which looks at the

relationships between the participants, and 3) textual which involves the logical

construction of either oral or written text.


3

Of these language functions, it is the ideational component that is of primary

concern in the present study as it is the one concerned with message or content, and

from the transitivity analysis through the verbs, reflected in action-oriented actors, and

beneficiaries used, will help derive who is the boss in the speech. The ideational

function involves processes, qualities, participants, and circumstances and the process-

participant relationship is realized through transitivity (Morley, 1985 in Castro, 1999)

which is made up of three elements which are the 1) process represented by the verb,

2) participants which involves person and object roles, and 3) circumstantial such as

time, cause, or manner (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The roles include 1) actor who

is the doer of the action, 2) goal is the result of the process, 3) beneficiary receives the

goal/ object or service,and 4) instrument which is an inanimate entity that causes the

process (Halliday, 1973 in Castro, 1999).

The unit of analysis used in the paper is the clause, which ―in its representational

function, construes a quantum of human process: some process—some change, or in

the limiting case lack of change, in the external or our own internal environment

(Halliday in Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 79). In terms of types of clause, Halliday

distinguishes three types which are those of action, mental process, and relation. He

further classified the mental process into verb of 1) perception, 2) reaction, 3) cognition,

and 4) verbalization which have processor and phenomenon as participants instead of

actor and goal participants. In terms of relational clauses, the process expresses the

relation between the roles, while the action clauses may either be transitive (i.e.,

presence of goal), or intransitive ( i.e., absence of goal). Furthermore, Halliday also

categorized both action and mental-process clauses in terms of ergativity function


4

where the affected participant is inherently related with action clauses equivalent to the

goal in transitive and actor in intransitive clauses.

Since the subject of the paper used the Tagalog language, it is therefore

imperative that certain differences between the English and Tagalog language be made.

For instance, Tagalog verb phrases of any time aspect has focus: either doer-focus or

object-focus (Stuart, 2006). Stuart (2006) in his study on the mathematical order in

Tagalog language through verb phrases, cited such feature that makes the Tagalog

constructions ―Kumain siya‖ (doer-focus) and ―‖Kinain niya‖ (object-focus) different from

the intransitive-transitive distinction in English where the equivalent English construction

of the former sentence becomes an intransitive construction (―He ate‖) and the transitive

counterpart (―He ate it‖). Such distinction may also be applied to sentences using non-

action or stative verbs such as ―Napagod siya‖ (doer-focus) which is ―He grew tired‖ in

the English language and ―Pinagod siya‖ (object-focus) which is equivalent to ―It tired

him‖ (Stuart). Moreover, according to Stuart, the difference between the doer-focus and

object-focus lies in the use of verb affixes where –um-, mag--mang-, and ma- denote

doer-focus while the affixes i-,-in,-an and ma- signal object-focus. Finally, Stuart also

classified these foci into volitional where the action is being acted on purpose or

deliberately and non-volitional in which there is something happening of itself or is done

non-deliberately. All the eight affixes may be volitional and non-volitional depending on

the context.

Another difference between the English and Tagalog languages include word-

order where English typically uses the SVO pattern while Tagalog clauses are

commonly verb-initial although Tagalog also permits a nominal occurring before the


5

verb (Culwell-Kanarek, 2005). Furthermore, while English clauses need subject,

Tagalog language is a pro-drop language which means that Tagalog sentences may be

subjectless or the actor is not explicitly stated. For instance, the sentence ―Hindi na nga

nag-abot ng kita, sinamantala pa ang puwesto‖ the doer of the action is unidentified.

Objectives

Since the President is known for his statement in his SONA the previous year

which was ―Kayo ang boss ko‖, it would therefore be interesting to investigate who is the

boss (the served or the master) and the servant in the context of the speech and

whether such distinction may be accounted for by transitivity. Specifically, the paper

aims to address the following questions:

1. How could the boss (the served) and the servant presentation of roles of the

participants in terms of dominance and subordination be determined by

transitivity elements (process, participant)?

2. How does the use of such linguistic features add to the overall effect of the

superiority-inferiority roles in the speech?

Methodology

In labeling the text, the letters (A-CC) were used to mark the paragraphs in the

text while numbers (1-326) were used to label the sentences in a paragraph. Slashes

were used to divide the sentences into clauses. Traditionally, a clause is composed of a

subject and a predicate which may or may not have a complete idea. The division of

clauses within a sentence may also be marked with a comma and a coordinating

conjunction or a semi-colon in case of two independent clauses. Such were also the

bases for dividing the clauses in the text.


6

Since the main objective of this study is to determine who seems to be the

dominant entity (boss), only the actor and animate beneficiaries were analyzed (i.e.,

where there is an instrument in a clause, the instrument was excluded in the analysis).

In this paper, the following conditions were the bases for determining who is presented

as the ―boss‖ in the speech:

1. the boss as the beneficiary of the goal,

2. the actor/ processor as the boss when denoting activity that entails power,

and

3. the phenomenon as the subordinated which indicates passivity.

Moreover, I also excluded certain clauses from the analysis because they were

either hypothetical and/or conditional usually introduced by ―kung‖ or ―kapag‖ and thus,

not directly related to the research questions (e.g. kung hindi nawala ang pondong ito,

nakatapos na sana ang isang batang sa ngayon tumawid sa ghost bridge‖ in sentence

189) or the benefit given to the beneficiary was of negative value (e.g. ―utang‖ as the

goal and the beneficiary was ―ang kanilang tanggapan‖ in sentence 53) and the

rhetorical questions (e.g. ―Aanhin naman po natin ang mga numerong paghuhudyat ng

pag-asenso ng ilan kung marami pa rin ang napag-iiwanan?‖ (167). Furthermore, where

there were certain clauses that did not contain an actor but the verb implied an actor

(absent actor) such as ―nilagdaan‖ *(39) ―Nitong Biyernes lamang po, nilagdaan na ang

panibagong kasunduan, ―pagbili‖ (47) ―Wang-wang po ang pagbili ng helicopter sa

presyong brand new‖ or the sentence (51) ―Hindi na nga nag-abot ng kita, sinamantala


7

pa ang puwesto‖ they were disregarded as well. Hence, only the clauses with explicit

animate participants were considered in the analyses. Institutions such as PAGCOR,

PAGASA were however, considered animate as such are composed of people. Another

element ruled out was the goal of the acknowledgment (e.g. the receiver of ―salamat‖)

as it may not be an indicator of passivity or domination associated with ―boss-employee‖

relationship,

Finally, clauses that served as discourse markers were also excluded, for

instance, ―Tumungo naman po tayo sa ARMM‖ (184) and ―Dumako po tayo sa trabaho‖

(155).

Analysis of the Speech

Of the 326 sentences, there were 490 clauses and of these, 288 were taken out

since only 202 clauses contained actors, processors and human beneficiaries. To get

the percentage of each entity, the number of clauses that contain a specific participant

is divided to the number of the total clauses. Table 1 shows the number and percentage

of the clauses classified according to the participants.

Table 1. Number and percentage of clause according to Participants

Clause Type Frequency Percentage

Beneficiary 49 24.26 Processor 46 22.77 Actor 107 52.97

As can be seen, a little more than half of the clause types contained the actor

role, indicating the active participation of the entities concerned while beneficiary clause

type was used almost as much as the processor. Perhaps to provide a more detailed

and richer discussion of such figures, it is best to identify the specific entities acting as

the beneficiary, processor, and actor roles. Table 2 shows the particular participants


8

and the frequency of their occurrence in a specific role. The data was obtained by

dividing the number of clauses that contains a specific role (e.g. Filipinos as beneficiary)

by the total number of clauses containing a specific role (e.g. beneficiary).

Table 2 Participants and frequency of roles per clause type

Clause Frequency Percentage

Beneficiary Filipinos 27 55.10 Corrupt Officials 8 16.33 President Aquino 6 12. 24 Government 1 2.04 President and the Government 1 2.04 The Government and the Filipino 6 12. 24 Processor Filipinos 14 30.43 Corrupt Officials 2 4.35 President Aquino 18 39.13 President and Filipinos 9 19.57 President and the Government 3 6.52 Actor Filipinos 9 8.41 Corrupt Officials 20 18.69 President Aquino 16 14.95 President and the Government 47 43.93 Government Officials 15 14.02

Beneficiary As can be seen, in terms of beneficiary element, Filipinos were presented as

primary recipients of goal almost 60% of the time. Due to the nature of the SONA, it is

but expected that majority of the beneficiaries were the Filipinos, of whom the SONA

was addressed. Most of them were identified according to a particular group such as

CCT beneficiaries (27), in ―Maari na po nitong sgauting ang dalawang

milyong…benepisyaro ng CCT‖, ―pulis at kawal‖ (128) in ―hindi lang pulis at kawal sa

Luzon ang makikinabang‖ , ―kawani ng Bureau of Jail Management and Penology at

Bureau of Fire‖ (130) in ―Sa ating mga kawani ng Bureau of Jail Management Penology


9

at Bureau of Fire Proetection, may good news pa rin ako sa inyo: kasama po kayo rito‖.

This might have been deliberately done to specify each recipient of the benefits and to

further personalize the speech, giving the effect of special mention and/or closeness of

the President to the members of these institutions. However, there were also

beneficiaries who were addressed in a more general manner, expanding the scope of

such benefactive function such as ―anak‖ benefiting from education or medical

assistance in case ―may magkasakit‖ (118) in ―pampaaral sa anak‖.This may have been

done to ensure that every Filipino, from different backgrounds, could feel the

personalized touch of what the government gives or does for their benefit. With a

significant percentage of almost 60%, it seems that the direct answer to the first

question is the Filipinos are indeed, the boss. It is also interesting to note that Filipinos

and the President entities were referred to in the speech as the inclusive ―tayo‖ or

―natin‖ akin to the politicain‘s integration of style (Sharma, 2004) where the president

presented ―himself as part of the the people‖ (Sharma, 2004, p. 35). This is seen in

clauses such as ―umangat ng 15.6 percent ang inani nating palay noon nakaraang taon‖

(110) or ―magkakaroon tayo ng tanod-bayan na hindi magiging ―tanod-bayan‖ ng mga

nagwawang-wang‖ (270). Such clauses were categorized as referents to both the

Filipino people and the government (i.e.what comprises the state) as both entities seem

to benefit from the goals.

Such personalization of the style, combined with the appositive ―boss‖ to address

the Filipinos, and through style of integration, in the use of both the general and specific

beneficiaries may help explain Montelibano‘s (2011) article on ―My SONA to P-NOY‖

where he expressed his message as bluntly stated in his title and in his direct address


10

to P-NOY with regard to the writer‘s trust in the President and in the President‘ vision.

This may have also been the same reason that Santos (2011) appreciated the

‗parables‘ P-NOY used in his speech which made the speech and the information more

relevant to the ordinary Filipino. By identifying the entities as beneficiaries in these

‗parables‘, the speech had somehow evoked equality among the listeners as there was

no use of fancy terms for the entities or beneficiaries, but that such mundane terms

were used to refer to the beneficiaries, further adding to closer distance between the

President and the Filipinos.

However, some critics argued that P-NOY‘s speech was lacking in some

aspects. Perhaps this was because other beneficiaries or recipients may have not been

mentioned. For example, Collas-Monsod (2011) felt that what was lacking in the speech

was the President‘s failure to mention the ―targets‖ or beneficiaries of the Philippine

Development Plan (PDP) which could have made the personalization effect to the

Filipino beneficiaries stronger, especially considering that the plan would contain more

specific details that concern different sectors. Moreover, Mongaya et al (2011) of the

Cebu Daily News cited different reactions regarding the SONA from different people,

some of which were not satisfied as they were waiting for P-NOY to mention something

about a particular sector/ beneficiary that they had in mind such as tourism, economic

program beneficiaries, the poor, unemployed, basic commodities, education and

environment.

Next to Filipinos as the beneficiaries, corrupt officials, who were also described

as ―utak wang-wang‖ to mean abusive, were cited as beneficiaries which may add to the

effect to the listener‘s negative perception of those in the position who used their power


11

to their advantage. Such participants were identified as the beneficiaries from tangible

or material wealth such as ―milyong-milyong pabuya‖ (48) in ―Wang-wang din ang

milyun-milyong pabuya ng mga opisyal ng GOCC‖ , or the‖kita ng agrikultura‖ (111) in

―para lang punan ang bulsa ng mga gustong magsariling-diskarte ng kita sa agrikultura‖

or benefit from position ―manalo ang kanilang kandidato (187) in ―ang administrasyon

naman ang magpapatakbo ng makinarya para manalo ang kanilang kandidato‖. It is

also interesting to note that the corrupt officials had dual functions of being both the

actor and beneficiary in a clause. For example, they (actor) could double the bonus they

would get (beneficiary) (52) in ― dinoble pa nila (ang bonus) sa unang anim na buwan ng

2010, or they (actor) would give midnight bonus to themselves (53) in ―nasikmura pa

nilang magbigay ng midnight bonus sa sarili‖, further emphasizing the seemingly greedy

image of these corrupt officials. This may have also been the effect to both Tan (2011)

and Collas-Monsod (2011) when they commended on the innovative or expanded and

appropriate use of ―wang-wang‖ to stand for the corrupt officials who gained profit from

various sources, and when Collas-Monsod further expressed her liking of the

elimination of a ―wang-wang culture‖.

On the other hand, although based solely on the statistics, corrupt officials were

presented as beneficiaries less often than the Filipinos, others (e.g., Tan, 2011) did not

apparently appreciate the seeming ―litany‖ of such ―utak wang-wang‖ when the

President enumerated the problems and different forms of corruption by the politicians.

Perhaps, if the speech was somehow meant to elicit disappointment or anger from the

audience directed to these corrupt officials, identifying the beneficiaries explicitly, rather

than using actorless or beneficiary less clauses, may achieve such effect. However,


12

such was not the case as there were only 8 instances of presenting the corrupt officials

as beneficiaries. Such strategy focused more on what was done, rather done who did it

or who benefitted from it. This may probably due to the effect that the President wanted

to emphasize more of what the government was doing about the situation (as reflected

in the government‘s actor role). Such conjecture may also help explain why both

President Aquino and the Government (to mean agencies or institutions) were only

presented as beneficiary rarely.

Processor

Based on the Table 2, the Filipinos were often assigned as processor or

perceiver of mental processes such as ―nakikita ang buwis‖ (71) in ―nakikita naman po

ninyong napupunta na sa tama ang buwis ninyo‖, or ―tingnan…ang perhuwisyo‖ (87) in

―tingnan nga po ninyo ang idinulot na perhuwisyo ng pagwawang-wang sa sistema‖.

One criterion for labeling the subordinate is through the processor role as the process is

represented by mental-process which affects the participant (Halliday, 1996) and is

associated with non-activity. When the Filipinos are presented as processors, they were

usually the addressee of an imperative that uses a mental-process (e.g. 71, 87) which

further adds to the apparent passivity of the Filipinos since they were the beneficiaries,

this time, of commands. It may also depict a picture of helplessness on the part of the

Filipino processors as they seemingly submissively wait for orders from an authority, or

even if they were treated as beneficiary, they may be seen as passively waiting for the

benefits the actors (those in position of authority) may bestow upon them. This could

then create an image of dependence and hopelessness in the situation. Such

assumption then contradicts the previous conclusion that the dominant beneficiary role


13

of the Filipinos who are the served, rather than the servants. The rare occurrence of the

corrupt officials‘ presentation as processor may also be supported by the previous claim

that those who are in authority (e.g., corrupt officials) tend to overpower the affected

participants, while the almost absence of the government and the President and the

Governement as a processor may be attributed to the nature of the work of the

government to take a more proactive stance since it is expected from the government

agencies and institutions to be responsible for taking actions.

On the other hand, President Aquino‘s self-presentation as processor almost as

often as that of the Filipinos may support the President‘s efforts of personalization.

However, when the leader of the country is depicted as a processor, he may also be

seen as a submissive as well. Such idea may also help account for Osmeña‘s (2011 in

Mongaya et al, 2011) reaction that his moves were ―cautious and careful‖ which may be

misconstrued as passivity. Furthermore, others also commented on his ‗starting slow‘

and taking ‗baby steps‘ efforts, but that such efforts are not sufficient and that

decisiveness is needed to address the problems (in Mongaya, et al.). When the

President used the inclusive pronoun ―tayo‖ or ―natin‖ such as in (31) and (92) to refer to

both himself and the Filipinos (audience) which was almost 20% of the occurrence in

the processor role, it seems as if both the Filipinos and the President are submissive

where the Filipinos waits for commands, and the President carefully calculates his

movements and somehow becomes ―submissive‖ to the people through personalization

and by associating himself with the mass.


14

Actor

Majority of the actor role was attributed to the President and the Government.

Again, this is perhaps to reiterate the assumption mentioned that the government is

expected to practice proactivity as these are the agencies where the people could go to

whenever they have issues. When the Government is depicted as such in both the

Actor (active participant) and least occurrence in the processor (passive participant) and

connected to the almost 20% occurrence of the corrupt officials as actors (the second

most assigned actor role) and as beneficiaries, the speech seems to demonstrate Van

Dijk‘s (1987 in Caldas-Coulthard, 2003) argumentative strategies of negative other-

presentation, in this case, the corrupt officials, and positive self-presentation which is

manifested in the way the Government is depicted as an entity that fulfills its

responsibilities and roles. A particular clause in the speech that supports this

assumption is in sentence 303: ―Nasa tama po kami; nasa mali kayo‖.

Based also on Table 2, it also seems that the third most active actor role is the

President. In analyzing this particular category, only the clauses which contain the self-

referent ―ako‖ to refer to the President were considered; for instance in (259) ―at hindi

lamang dapat ako ang namemersonal sa usaping ito‖, very much like the style of

identity (Sharma, 2004) where the President distances himself from the people and

even from the government. With almost 15% of the actor role attributed to the President,

and being the third most active actor, such supposition may not be exactly represented

as the clauses containing the President in the actor role may refer to either 1)

something he did in the past (e.g. ―humarap po ako sa inyo noong aking inagurasyon‖ in

sentence 1),or 2) as an appeal (e.g.‖nanawagan po ako sa inyo‖ in sentence 72). In


15

either case, they somehow weaken the President‘s stance since in the first instance, he

was referring to a personal recount of what he did in the past year (i.e. something

remote or somehow irrelevant to the moment of speaking), and in the second instance,

he was appealing to the public or requesting for the Filipino‘s cooperation. Hence,

although the President represents himself as an actor, activity or timeliness may not

necessarily be associated with his activities as the actor. Another observation that may

be linked to this inactivity idea is the fact that 58. 78% of the clauses in the speech were

taken out due to reasons stated above such as inanimacy, discoursal markeers,

hypothetical statements, rhetorical questions, and discourse markers. This means that

only less than half of the clauses in the speech denote animacy associated with all the

three roles examined (beneficiary, processor, actor), further weakening somehow, the

effect of activity, power and superiority. This is also probably the reason why when

Mongaya et al. (2011) surveyed reactions regarding the SONA, some expressed

disappointments due to the apparent inaction of the government such as a vendor‘s

response that ‗it‘s the same problems. Increases in prices of rice and gasoline and lack

of jobs‘ (para. 2) and the President should be more ―decisive‖ according to business

leaders (Mongaya et al., 2011).

Next to the President, Filipinos are assigned in the actor role almost 10% of the

time. That the number of instances that the President and Filipinos in the actor role is

relatively close, this seemed to be the pattern as well in processor roles for both

participants. Such close number of incidence between the two roles may provide the

effect of cooperation, teamwork and equality as they seemed to be equated at being

assigned to both roles. Furthermore, the almost equal assignment of roles to them may


16

be associated with establishing mutual trust and respect as a result of personalization,

further adding to the President‘s style of integration. Thus, it may be concluded that

using the transitivity analysis there seemed to be no clear boss in the President‘s SONA

as cooperation, teamwork and unity apparently are the recurring themes (or messages)

of the President

Such effect may also probably explain why Montelibano‘s (2011) reaction to P-

NOY‘s SONA, and perhaps, it is best to conclude this paper in Mr. Montelibano‘s words:

Trust your people, Mr. President, as they trust you. They are not your bosses for nothing.

They will march with you if you ask them to. Even now, many of us are doing what we,

as good citizens, have to do. If you want us to do even more, just tell us where, when and

how. You will be pleasantly surprised with our response.

We know you need the politicians and the bureaucrats to run a democracy. At the same

time, the people are the best guarantee that democracy will work.

… the path of righteousness, the “Matuwid na daan,” requires wisdom and courage, and a

hero to make it a lifestyle.

Go be a hero, P-Noy, and wake up the hero in us. (para. 10-13)


17

References:

Benigno S. Aquino III, Second State of the Nation Address.(2011). The Official Gazette

of the Republic of the Philippines. Available from

http://www.gov.ph/2011/07/25/benigno-s-aquino-iii-second-state-of-the-

nation-address-july-25-2011/

Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. (2003). Cross-cultural representation of ‗Otherness‘

in media discourse. In G. Weiss & R. Wodak (eds.). Critical discourse analysis:

Theory and interdisciplinarity. New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan.

Castro, M.C.A. (1999). The use of systemic grammar in character analysis. In N.

Epistola (ed). Approaches to English teaching strategies. Journal of Asian

English Studies,2.

Collas-Monsod, S. (2011, July 30). SONA omissions and interpretations. Available from

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8891/sona-omissions-and-misinterpretations

Culwell-Kanarek, N. (2005). Pre-verbal pronouns in Tagalog syntax. UCLA Working

Papers in Lingustics, 12, 49- 56.

Halliday, M.A.K. & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar.

London: Arnold.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1996). An inquiry into the language of W. Golding‘s The Inheritors. In

J.J.Weber (ed.). The Stylistic Reader.From Roman Jakobson to the Present.

London: Arnold.

Mongaya, C. et al. (2011 July 26). Praise, letdown in P-Noy’s SONA. Available from

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/30311/praise-letdown-in-p-noy%E2%80%99s-sona

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8891/sona-omissions-and-misinterpretations

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/30311/praise-letdown-in-p-noy%E2%80%99s-sona


18

Montelibano, J. M. (2011, July 28). My SONA to P-NOY. Available from

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8823/my-sona-to-p-noy

Tan, M. L. (2011, July 26). ‘Wangwang’, crabs. Available from

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8667/%E2%80%98wangwang%E2%80%99- crabs

Stuart, L.U. (2006). The –in grid: A mathematical order in language by way of Tagalog

verb phrases. Paper presented at Tenth International Conference on

Austronesian Linguistics. 17-20 January 2006. Puerto Princesa City, Palawan,

Philippines. http//www.sil.org/asia/Philippines/ical/papers.html

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8823/my-sona-to-p-noy

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8667/%E2%80%98wangwang%E2%80%99-%20%20%20%20%20crabs

ang boses ng boss (the voice of the boss): determining the boss in president benigno aquino iii‘s...

Documents