MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said he will read his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) speech which will be over in 35 minutes on July 23.
“I will read my SONA speech which should not be more than 35 minutes,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said, quoting the President who was presiding a Cabinet meeting at Malacañang Palace.
Roque said Duterte’s SONA will be shorter since a pre-SONA forum is now being conducted by various Cabinet clusters.
“It is shorter since we had pro-SONA led by various chairmen of the Cabinet cluster committees,” Roque said in radio dzMM Interview.
Last Friday, the Economic Development Cluster and Infrastructure Cluster reported their respective accomplishments during the 2018’s pre-SONA entitled “Tatak ng Pagunlad” held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.
Dubbed as “Tatak ng Pagbabago”, the pre-SONA forum will resume on July 11 featuring the Participatory Governance and Human Development and Poverty Reduction Clusters under sub-theme “Tatak ng Malasakit at Pagkakaisa”.
The Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation and Disaster Risk Resiliency and the Security, Justice and Peace Clusters will report their respective accomplishments during the third and last part of the forum entitled “Tatak ng Katatagan” on July 18.
Duterte delivered his first SONA for 90 minutes while his last SONA reached 120 minutes.
In terms of world count, Duterte’s 2017 speech was the longest with 12,527 words, surpassing former president Benigno Aquino’s 11,934 words he used for his 2015 SONA.
Aquino’s 2015 SONA was the longest in terms of time as he delivered it for 135 minutes, according to media reports. (Jelly Musico/PNA)
