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In any language, the president’s speech must be grammar-perfect

Since President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III prefers to deliver his major policy speeches in Filipino (the Tagalog-based national language), it goes without saying that those speeches should be nothing less than grammar-perfect in Filipino. His speechwriters and advisers should therefore craft the content, syntax, and structure of his Filipino speeches to perfection with the same fastidiousness they would lavish on his English speeches.

In the case of the President’s recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), however, this evidently didn’t happen. Its use of Tagalog, while admirably simple and forthright, was far from perfect grammatically, syntactically, and structurally.¹ But these errors were not serious enough to detract from the often brutal efficiency of the President’s message, so I decided to just overlook them and keep my misgivings about them to myself. But then I came across the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s highly laudatory editorial about that speech in its July 28 issue. In a parenthetical comment, the editorial praised P-Noy’s SONA as “the first in our history to be fully in Filipino” that also “had the merit of being written in simple but effective language,” even as it lamented the official English version by Malacañang as “a markedly inadequate translation.”  

Here’s that editorial’s parenthetical comment: “For instance, the powerful introductory sentence ‘Inilihim at sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa’ was translated, hamhandedly, as ‘The reality was hidden from our people, who seem to have been deliberately obfuscated on the real state of our nation.’ It even bears factual errors, for instance translating ‘sampung taon’ as ‘seven years.’”²

I agree with the Inquirer’s assessment of the poor English translation of that sentence, and about it I’ll be making my own detailed grammar critique very shortly. But I must hasten to say that the “powerful introductory sentence” in Filipino that the Inquirer referred to is itself seriously flawed both grammatically and structurally, and it’s likely that the English translators themselves were confused by those flaws into rendering that grossly unfaithful English translation.

To have a better understanding of what happened, let’s take a closer look at the whole passage in Filipino from where that problematic sentence was taken:

“Sulyap lamang po ito; hindi pa ito ang lahat ng problemang haharapin natin. Inilihim at sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.

“Sa unang anim na buwan ng taon, mas malaki ang ginastos ng gobyerno kaysa sa pumasok na kita. Lalong lumaki ang deficit natin, na umakyat na sa 196.7 billion pesos. Sa target na kuleksyon, kinapos tayo ng 23.8 billion pesos; ang tinataya namang gastos, nalagpasan natin ng 45.1 billion pesos.”

For this discussion, let’s just skip the President’s controversial interpretation of the previous administration’s budget spending figures that, as we know, has now become fodder for heated public debate. Instead, we’ll just focus on the second sentence of the first paragraph of the passage in Filipino: “Inilihim at sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.”

The grammar of this sentence is, to begin with, seriously erroneous: “Inilihim at sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.” The verb “inilihim” is intransitive and the verb “iniligaw” is transitive, but they have been forced into a grammatically flawed compound construction. In Filipino as in English, it isn’t permissible to compound intransitive and transitive verbs and for both to have a common direct object; as I’ll show in a moment, intransitive verbs can only work with an object of the preposition, while transitive verbs absolutely need a direct object to function. 

At any rate, that the third sentence is grammatically wrong can be seen more clearly by spinning off the compounded verb phrase constructions into two separate sentences. Here’s the first: “Inilihim ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.” (This is a grammatically wrong sentence that translates into this similarly wrong English: “The people were kept secret to the true state of the nation.”) And here’s the second: “Sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.” (This is a grammar-perfect sentence that translates into this similarly grammar-perfect English: “The people were deliberately led astray as to the true state of our nation.”)

Correctly, therefore, those two separate sentences should have been rendered in this compound form: “Pinaglihiman at sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.”  (“The people were kept in the dark and deliberately led astray as to the true state of our nation.”) This time, the verbs “pinaglihiman” (“kept in the dark”) and iniligaw” (“led astray”) are now both transitive and properly compounded, with “ang sambayanan” (“the people”) as their common direct object.

But this isn’t really the best construction we can do for that sentence. By a simple rearrangement of its grammatical elements, we can actually come up with a much better, more readable, and more elegant construction. Try this for size: “Sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan at inilihim sa kanila ang totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.” (“The people were deliberately led astray and kept in the dark as to the true state of our nation.”)

Now here’s Malacañang’s English translation of the original Filipino passage that’s at issue here (underlining mine):

“This report is merely a glimpse of our situation. It is not the entire picture of the crises we are facing. The reality was hidden from our people, who seem to have been deliberately obfuscated on the real state of our nation.

“In the first six years of this year, government expenditure exceeded our revenues. Our deficit further increased to PhP196.7 billion. Our collection targets, which lack PhP23.8 billion, were not fully met, while we went beyond our spending by PhP45.1 billion.”

In its editorial, the Inquirer describes Malacañang’s English translation of that third sentence of the first paragraph as “ham-handed”—meaning “graceless” and “lacking dexterity.”

As I indicated earlier, I agree with that assessment. (The relative subordinate clause “who seem to have been deliberately obfuscated on the real state of our nation” is, I think, terribly out of sync, out of tune, and out of place in that speech.) I now must point out, though, that the problem is much worse than that: the English translation is actually seriously unfaithful to the original. The core idea of the original sentence in Filipino has practically disappeared, and the English translation is vastly different structurally and semantically from the original Filipino sentence.  

It is structurally unfaithful because while the original Tagalog was constructed as a simple sentence that starts with a compound verb phrase, the English translation is a complex sentence, one with a main clause and a relative subordinate clause that modifies the subject in the main clause. This is a big no-no in translation.

It is semantically unfaithful because the original flawed Tagalog talked in blunt, categorical terms that the previous government deceived the people (“Inilihim at sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan sa totoong kalagayan ng ating bansa.”), but the English translation makes it appear that the speaker was just making a weak, tepid supposition (“The reality was hidden from our people, who seem to have been deliberately obfuscated on the real state of our nation.”) Moreover, it used such a big, unfamiliar, and semantically slippery verb, “obfuscate,” to deliver the meaning of the plainer and simpler verb “confuse.” But I must say that even the verb “confuse” is itself inappropriate in this case, for the sense of the original Tagalog was that of “the people were deliberately led astray” (“sadyang iniligaw ang sambayanan”), meaning the people were deliberately deceived, which, of course, is a much worse offense that just confusing them.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that while admirable for its simplicity, the language of P-Noy’s SONA in Filipino was grammatically and semantically wanting in some of its most telling parts. This shouldn’t be the case with presidential speeches. In whatever language they are written and delivered and officially translated, they should be exemplars not only of good, logical thinking but also of flawless grammar and exposition from beginning to finish.
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¹Below are some of what I think are the more serious grammatical, semantic, and structural lapses in the original text in Filipino of President Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (all italicizations and underlining mine). I have ignored minor errors in preposition usage in various other parts of the text.

(1)
“Ang walang-katapusang pabalik-balik sa proseso ng pagrehistro ng pangalan ng kumpanya, na kada dalaw ay umaabot ng apat hanggang walong oras, ibababa na natin sa labinlimang minuto.”

The sense of the sentence is obscured by the inappropriate use of the Filipino prepositions “sa,” “ng,” and again “ng” as italicized above. The intended meaning would have been much clearer if the prepositions “na,” “sa,” and again “sa” (in that order) were used instead, as follows:

“Ang walang-katapusang pabalik-balik na proseso sa pagrehistro ng pangalan ng kumpanya, na kada dalaw ay umaabot sa apat hanggang walong oras, ibababa na natin sa labinlimang minuto.”

(2)
“Ito pong sinasabing kakulangan sa tubig sa Metro Manila, kinilusan agad ni Secretary Rogelio Singson at ng DPWH. Hindi na siya naghintay ng utos, kaya nabawasan ang perwisyo.”

The very awkward and grammatically erroneous use of the Filipino verb “kinilusan”—it very roughly translates into “where they moved” or “where there was movement” in English—makes this sentence construction unacceptably bad (“sobrang garil,” in the Filipino tongue). In fact, I have a feeling that the word “kinilusan” (unlike, say, “pinaglabanan” which means “where they fought”) isn’t even a valid word in the Filipino lexicon, and it certainly is directly untranslatable into English.

Here’s a smoother, grammatically correct construction of that problematic sentence:

“Sa sinasabing kakulangan sa tubig sa Metro Manila, kumilos agad si Secretary Rogelio Singson at ang DPWH. Hindi na sila naghintay ng utos, kaya nabawasan ang perwisyo.”    

(3)
“Tungkulin po ng bawat Pilipino na tutukan ang mga pinunong tayo rin naman ang nagluklok sa puwesto. Humakbang mula sa pakikialam tungo sa pakikilahok. Dahil ang nakikialam, walang-hanggan ang reklamo. Ang nakikilahok, nakikibahagi sa solusyon.”

I understand that there’s an attempt at rhetorical flourish here, but frankly, I can’t find a strong-enough semantic and functional distinction between the nouns “pakikialam” (involvement) and “pakikilahok” (participation). As far as I know, to make “pakialam” isn’t intrinsically bad; to “makialam,” in fact, used to be a respectable militant battlecry and a responsible thing to do on the part of private citizens. And it’s actually all that they can and should do in public affairs; to me, to make “pakilahok” with duly elected public officials in performing their duties smacks of interference.

This is probably why in the official English translation below, the translators ended up translating “pakikialam” to the English “fault-finding,” which is closer to the sense of what the original Filipino passage wanted to convey:

“It is every Filipino’s duty to closely watch the leaders that you have elected. I encourage everyone to take a step towards participation rather than fault-finding. The former takes part in finding a solution; from the latter, never-ending complaints.”

²To the factual errors found by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in the speech, I believe this should be added for the record (underlining mine):

“Sa larangan ng ating Sandatahang Lakas:

“Mayroon po tayong 36,000 nautical miles ng baybayin. Ang mayroon lamang tayo: tatlumpu’t dalawang barko. Itong mga barkong ito, panahon pa ni MacArthur.”

Official English translation:

“On national defense:

“We have 36,000 nautical miles of shoreline, but we only have 32 boats. These boats are as old as the time of (US General Douglas) MacArthur.”

The figure of 36,000 nautical miles for the length of the Philippine coastline is incorrect; it should only be 19,594 nautical miles. The problem here is that the statement used the wrong unit of measure for the figure of 36,000; it should be in nautical kilometers intead of nautical miles.

By the way, the English translation “These boats are as old as the time of (US General Douglas) MacArthur” is semantically inaccurate. We don’t say “something is old as the time of something”; we say “something dates back to the time of something.” So a more accurate English translation of the original sentence in Filipino is this: “These boats date back to the time of (US General Douglas) MacArthur.”

SHORT TAKES IN MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH:   

(1) Philippine Star: Unduly long phrase as subject of the sentence

You must have wondered why it’s so difficult to grasp the point of that long statement that’s attributed to President Aquino. Well, it’s not only because the statement proper (excluding the long attribution) is all of 31 words long, but more so because the operative verb and predicate (“are in advanced stages”) are so far detached from the noun (“negotiations”) that serves as the nominal subject of that noun phrase—a span of 26 words. This is the problem with a very long noun phrase as subject of the sentence—it delays and weakens the grammatical connection between the operative verb and the nominal subject or doer of the action. As a result, the action is not consummated or delivered as fast as the reader’s mind expects.

One effective way to get around this problem is to use the so-called discontinuous noun phrase strategy. This means breaking into an unduly long noun phrase to allow for an earlier appearance of the operative verb and, in the process, bring it closer to its operative subject or to the noun that performs its action.

When we apply that strategy to the problematic statement, we get the following much clearer and easier-to-understand statement:

“Negotiations are in advanced stages to lease out the Navy’s major facilities on Roxas Boulevard and in Taguig City for private commercial development to raise funds for fleet modernization, President Aquino told The STAR yesterday when he attended the 24th anniversary celebration at the paper’s offices in Port Area.”

(Caveat: The discontinuous noun phrase strategy may not always work in every case. When it doesn’t, a major rewrite of the problematic statement is needed.)

(2) Manila Bulletin: Using a very longwinded progressive verb phrase as modifier

This is another hard-to-understand statement. What makes it so is its use up front of a very longwinded progressive verb phrase (all of 21 words) to modify the subject of the main clause of the sentence, which comes much, much later. When short and sweet, such modifying phrases can very effectively give texture and context to sentences; otherwise, they only serve to convolute sentences and confuse readers, as in this case. It therefore pays for newspaper reporters to resist the temptation of using them to start off a sentence.

Here’s how that problematic lead sentence might be simplified and made more readable:

“The provincial government of Aurora has forged an agreement with logging firms operating in the province to allocate at least 10 percent of their annual wood production for local consumption. This is one of the measures it is pursuing to eradicate illegal logging without compromising the supply of lumber for household needs and various government infrastructure projects.”

(3) The Manila Times: Awkward phraseology; inappropriate punctuation; defective sentence construction

The first sentence of the lead passage above suffers from the very awkward phrasing of “were razed by fire by the New People’s Army (NPA) over the week.” Also, the verb “were” should be “was” because “equipment” is a singular collective noun, and the term “over the week” was evidently meant to be “over the weekend” instead (which, of course, is a much shorter time span for the burning than a whole week). Better phrasing: “was burned by the New People’s Army (NPA) over the weekend” or, to make it  a little more dramatic, “was set ablaze by the New People’s Army (NPA) over the weekend.”

In the second sentence, the parenthetical “the headquarters of the Army’s Fifth Infantry Division” lacks a closing double-dash, making the sentence confusing to read.

The sentence in the second paragraph is (a) mixed up, (b) marred by a subject-verb disagreement error, (c) uses the wrong verb tense, (d) doesn’t complete its thought, and (e) uses a parenthetical punctuation wrongly. It needs a major rewrite to become clearly understandable.

Here’s the whole problematic passage as grammatically and structurally corrected:

“At least P15-million worth of heavy equipment owned by a logging firm based here was burned by the New People’s Army (NPA) over the weekend, Army reports disclosed on Tuesday. According to Col. Loreto Magundayao, head of the fifth civil-military relations battalion based at Camp Melchor Dela Cruz—the headquarters of the Army’s Fifth Infantry Division—the communist rebels set on fire five trucks and five bulldozers in Echague town on Thursday.

“In a statement, the Army identified the owner and operator of the burned heavy equipment as the Monte Alto Logging Company. It reportedly has a valid permit to conduct logging operations along Isabela’s northern area.”

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