Senator Grace Poe as Rhetor: Probing the Rhetoric of a Neophyte Filipino Presidential Candidate

Politics never fails to impress its contentiousness on people, especially during elections where aspirants ‘court’ the electorate to win. Besides monetary resources, political candidates also consider rhetoric a top machinery. Rhetoric, or the effective use of language to persuade, has been a common research interest, particularly how politicians utilize it. Unique in this study is the probe on the rhetoric of a neophyte political candidate, Senator Grace Poe, who vied for presidency during the Philippine elections in 2016. Using the framework of discourse analysis, the researcher looked into the three appeals of rhetoric—the ethos, pathos, and logos—and the different rhetorical strategies that Senator Poe used in one of her campaign speeches. Results revealed that Poe attempted to build her credibility through her father, the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr., who also ran for president but lost. As an emotional strategy, she reminisced her father’s past experiences and reminded the audience about the desirable attributes of Filipinos, which clearly attempted to incite emotions to win the audience’s support. Moreover, logical reasoning was also present in her rhetoric by proving claims through non-negotiable ideas and cause-effect relationship. She as well did not miss to utilize rhetorical devices such as repetition, rhetorical questions, meaningful use of we and I, and modality. Overall, Poe’s skill to demonstrate rhetoric has not realized strong persuasiveness to influence popular votes.