The campaign for the presidential elections are at it’s highest in these final days.  To add more drama to it, software configuration problems on the Compact Flash (CF) cards used on the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines suddenly cropped up.  But I’m leaving all that to the Comelec.  What they don’t need now are distractions like calling for a manual system of voting AND counting, postponement of elections, etc.  Just shut up and let them do what they’ll say they do.  You can always kick their asses later if they do come up short, right?  For now, just shut the hell up stay the course.

 

Now, back to the campaign.  Some days ago, a former colleague (but still a friend) posted a Facebook status that said, “for the thinking Filipino, this election should be a battle between Gilbert Teodoro and Dick Gordon. For those of you who have fallen into the trap of reasoning that voting for either will be a waste of your ballot, be logical. If everyone would just be responsible enough to uphold their principles, the RIGHT candidate can win.”  I completely agree with that sentiment.  But it also got me thinking.  “Why isn’t it?” I asked myself.  “Why would our people take a very important national exercise and turn it into a mere popularity contest?”  Initially, I thought that the problem was that we’re so deeply affected and hurt by everything that has happened to us negatively by the current administration that we seem to embrace every person identifying themselves as an agent of change, whether it be from a familiar political clan, or someone vowing to restore and finish what was started but was ousted.  But after much thought, a little bit of research and trip down memory lane, I began to wonder, didn’t this happen in every presidential election since, maybe the pre-Marcos dictatorship era?

 

Change is the keyword in the race to the presidency.  All 9 candidates have that as a battlecry (okay, most of them).  There’s no denying the fact that after 9 years of the Arroyo government, we want–demand–someone different and new.  Someone who will pull us out of the hellhole we’re in.  Someone man enough who will take the main wheel and steer us into the right path.  Almost all of the candidates have the credentials, amount of experience, and the (gulp) heart to really serve the country and be it’s rightful leader.  But the main question is, do they have the right intestinal and testicular fortitude to do so?  Let’s do a quick breakdown and see.

 

Questions still surround why Senator Noynoy Aquino still hasn’t taken a stand on the Hacienda Luisita issue.  After years of promised land reform by his mother, the late former president Cory Aquino, there’s still no resolvable agreement.  Not to mention his experience (or lack thereof) during his stint in Congress and the Senate.  Why didn’t he do something about that all those years?  His slogan of “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” (if there is no corruption, there is no poverty) is very broad to say the least.  Remember that the late president was pushed into the political limelight on the aftermath of her husband’s assassination, with no knowlege or leadership skills on how to run even a barangay.  Though democracy was restored (which was her only crowning achievement as president), her leadership was questioned by a number of attempted military takeovers.  Now, Noynoy is in an all too familiar situation.  Yes, things are different now, but whose to say that the ghosts of administrations past won’t come to haunt him?

 

Questions also surround Senator Manny Villar, mainly about the manipulation of the C5 road deal (does ZTE broadband deal ring a bell?) to benefit his businesses thus making more money for him, which, is now being (over)spent bombarding radio and television airwaves with his face using catchy jingles, all-star endorsements and rule-bending appearances giving props for party-list groups.  As i’ve mentioned in my previous entry, I never trust businessmen who turn into politicians.  With what we have all seen and heard, his campaign style is all to familiar.  Not to mention the so-called “black propaganda” being hurled at Senator Aquino allegedly coming from Senator Villar’s camp.  How are we sure that he won’t (as he claims) use it when he sits on the president’s chair?

 

I don’t have to go far when former president Joseph Estrada is concerned.  The mere fact that he was convicted of plunder speaks for itself.  He was pardoned, yes, but it was a goodwill gesture made by president Arroyo.  And now I think she wishes she hasn’t done that.  By parading that he was unjustly jailed, charged and found guilty by his so-called conspirators speaks that he’s continously slapping the face of the person who pardoned him.  Who’s to say that when elected, he won’t get back and seek revenge at his political enemies?

 

“Six years of no corruption,” bears the campaign slogan of Brother Eddie Villanueva.  Like Senator Aquino’s slogan, it is too general.  No specifics, no clear steps, no clear platforms.  What, he’ll leave it all up to the big G upstairs?  He’ll have preachers in every government office proclaiming every single working day for six years that corruption is a sin?  Look, I don’t have anything against practicing faith, but what he’s doing is far from a leap of faith.  It takes more, much more than a strong religious faith to lead a country such as ours.

 

Gilbert Teodoro looks to me like a second coming of Gloria Arroyo when she was running for Vice-President.  He has “galing at talino” (skill and intelligence), and has executive experience being the former Secretary of National Defense.  Like GMA during her earlier years, she has the exact same attributes.  Yet, as I’ve also mentioned in my previous entry, his leadership skills are tainted by first, his and the National Disaster Coordinating Council’s (of which he was also chairman of at that time) response to Typhoon Ondoy’s relief efforts, his sudden jump from the Nationalist People’s Coalition to the administration party, and his choice of Edu Manzano as first mate.  Although he does a good job of masking those questionables by running a positive campaign despite being left for dead by former partymates and not getting in the middle of the wrestling match between Senator Aquino’s and Senator Villar’s camps, playing blind and deaf also means that you either don’t care, or are too privileged to care.

 

Many are turned off by how Senator Richard Gordon ta
lks and acts.  Some say he’s too brash, too abrasive, too strict, too intimidating, too proud.  Yet he was all these as mayor of Olongapo City.  He was all these as SBMA Chairman.  He was all these as Tourism Secretary.  And he is all these as a Senator and Red Cross Chairman.  He pulls no punches, puts people in their place when needed, and tells the painful truth… as it is.  I came across one of his statements which I also posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that says, “If I frown on you, if I shout at you, it means that I give a damn about you and I want YOU to improve. Not because you are a sorry excuse for a staff member, but because I really believe that you can be better and you owe it to yourself to be BETTER.”  Some people may say that the statement could’ve been said in a more positive way.  But that’s reverse psychology for you.  Still, others claim that he has the makings of a dictator.  He may be strict, demand results, but that is very, very far different from being a dictator.  Let me ask you, of all the presidents our country has had who were “nice,” where has it taken us?  Better yet, look at the countries our fellow Filipinos migrate to or find work at:  Singapore, United States, United Kingdom, Middle Eastern states.  What do they have in common?  Tough governments, tough leaders.  Result?  Continued first world status.  Don’t you think it’s time that we have a president who not only has the track record of accomplishments, but has the right attitude to go with it?  A president who, with his attitude and his Vice-President who has the same attitude will get rid of the habits we’ve all abhorred in government officials and whip their asses into shape?  A president who will bring back respect to the government?  That is who Richard Gordon is.  He may be called “Dick,” but he’s certainly not a dictator.

 

But what’s more important is how we, as a people and as a nation approach this elections.  As one television network puts it, “ako ang simula ng pagbabago” (change begins with me).  That line couldn’t have any more truth to it than it already has.  Yes, we want change.  But if we continue with that mentality of “i won’t vote for him because he has no chance of winning,” or “his parents are great,” or “with the way he looks and stands, he’s presidentiable,” or “he has a catchy jingle and celebrities endorse him,” then the change we’re looking for will still be very, very far away.  Until we make a principled stand and do away with the negativity of past political ways can we truly say that we have changed as a people, and as a country.  Again, the next six years of our lives are at stake here.  The candidates may have all the right stuff in convincing us that one of them is the right leader for our country, but the real question is, do WE have that right stuff in us?

 

We still have time to make the principled and right choice.