MALAYA OPINION: WILL VOX POPULI SHOUT THE HURRAHS, OR A TIRED ROAR
MANILA, OCTOBER 23, 2009 (MALAYA) by LITO BANAYO - ‘Will vox populi shout in a cacophony of hurrahs, or will it be more like a tired roar? Let’s hear them out.'WHILE watching former President Erap in the ANC-televised FOCAP-UNDP Forum last Tuesday, I could not help but feel sympathy for the old warrior who is raring to do a last hurrah on the political stage. The organizers were most unkind. Intentionally or not, they placed him in the middle of two of the youngest candidates, both of whom will just satisfy the minimum constitutionally-defined age for POTPhil. That’s President of the Philippines, if you want to make gaya-gaya the way American officials call theirs POTUS. Perhaps it was the order of their arrival in a program that was scheduled for 9 in the morning but wasn’t on till forty or so minutes later. It may have been because the organizers were waiting for the no-shows to show up, namely Noynoy, Villar and Gibo.
Gibo allegedly excused himself because of the ongoing rescue and relief preparations in case Typhoon Lupit became really malupit. Villar excused himself by saying he would be out of the country. And Noynoy sent word that unless Villar was around, he would not appear, or so some of the FOCAP members said. If true, this is not a good sign.
But that is the problem with these forums. One who is on top will not want to be publicly tripped. One erroneous statement could be costly. So rather than take a risk, the handlers would likely advise the current top-rater to make himself scarce. Contrarily, if you feed the television viewers with clear also-runs, never mind that they often mouth more substance than the present front-runners in the survey game (what a country!), viewer interest will wane considerably. Sorry, Nicky, JC, and whoever else whose survey figures are below 1 percent, but that’s how Filipinos are.
Which is why I have this unsolicited advice for Comelec --- as part of your voter information and voter education mandate, why don’t you sponsor Comelec forums (let’s not call them debates, as the format may not necessarily be adversarial) during the hiatus between the deadline for filing certificates of candidacy (November 30, 2009) and the official start of the 90-day campaign (February 9, 2010)? By then, the presidential candidates shall have been certainly identified, but because of the laws and regulations limiting "premature" campaigning, they cannot have infomercials, and they would be proscribed from certain actions and statements that border on campaigning. So isn’t this the best time to hold these forums, which would serve as the best platform to gauge competence and even character?
By then, the field should have narrowed down to the serious contenders. And these serious contenders, proscribed from premature campaign actions, will have no excuse for absence. The Comelec can tap the assistance of PPCRV, and get major corporate and institutional sponsors to defray the cost of live television coverage. Two weekends in December, five in January, and one in February equals eight encounters. They can rotate venue for the forums among the regional clusters, as in Region 1, 2, and CAR for Northern Luzon, Region 3 (Central Luzon), Region 4 (Southern Tagalog), Region 5 (Bicol), two for the Visayas, and another two for Mindanao.
It has been our sad experience in the past that candidates, particularly the front-runners, would claim that they have long-fixed campaign schedules that they cannot forego, whenever there are Comelec debates during the 90-day campaign period. The hiatus, which is all of 69 days, should be the best time to hold food-for-the-mind platforms to get the voter to appreciate the vision if any, and the competence, if any, of those who are presenting themselves to be the nation’s leader in these critical times. Through such encounters, the voter will also have a way to glean insights into the character of the candidate.
As early as 1998, when there were some ten or so announced candidates, I proposed in this space that the giant networks start sponsoring to winnow the chaff from the grain. It would, I then proposed, be some kind of political primaries for our candidates, given the virtual absence of the party as institution.
But back to Erap, he finally announced his third run for the presidency of the land. In 1992, he launched his first run, under his Partido ng Masang Pilipino, with then congressman Jun Rivera of Bulacan as his team-mate. Mid-way through the campaign, he decided that certainty was the better part of valor, and so he agreed to be Danding Cojuangco’s "vice". He won. As FVR’s anti-crime czar, he scored points with the public, and his movie-star popularity gained political gravitas. He became president in 1998. But as fate would have it, he was pushed off the palace by his vice-president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and was later convicted of plunder after a long trial. Within days after the Sandiganbayan promulgated the guilty verdict, his former vice-president granted him the executive clemency he requested. Now, the old warrior seeks a third run, and his fate is left, not necessarily to the people, not even his adoring "masa", but to a tribunal of 15 justices, fourteen of whom would have been appointed by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when verdict shall have been made.
Will the old formula work once more for Erap? Note that his declaration, along with Mayor Jojo Binay last Wednesday, was as cinematic an extravaganza as could be, and his double-spread print ads looked like an old movie poster. The other night, he said that this would be "the last performance of my life", paraphrasing a song that was last heard in the 80’s. In 1998, he promised that his presidency would be "the greatest performance of his life", a direct quote of the song’s title. Now in his "last" performance, he will have to convince the public that he would do "greater" than his "greatest", which was aborted after two years, six months and twenty days.
Will vox populi shout in a cacophony of hurrahs, or will it be more like a tired roar? Vamos a ver.
And frontrunner Noynoy, basking in the afterglow of his mother’s grand funeral and the public’s show of deep sympathy, has been quietly slipping in and out of Visayan provinces, with particular media recording his forays in photos and shoots, but sans audio. Is the strategy to be better seen than heard, and risk the pitfalls of controversy? Of course Mar his "vice" will finally wed Korina next week, and "Kuya" Noynoy will be ninong. If Erap was cinematic last Wednesday, Mar, Korina and Kuya-Ninong Noy will be the much-awaited end of a telenovela on Tuesday next.
Manny still shops for a vice-president, and he is now forced to shop in the ukay-ukay, having failed to close the bargains when the going was good.
Gibo is shopping not only for a viable vice-president, Ronnie having lost his tentative lust for the post, but Gibo is now confronted with a mutiny from within the ranks, Jun Ebdane the infrastructure man, as his ads proclaim. Why the guy even beat Gibo to the draw in resigning his cabinet post. Is he for real? That’s for Gibo to divine.
And Chiz Escudero is set to announce a long-delayed declaration next week. Long-delayed because he boxed himself in to a 40th birthday date with destiny, then recoiled at the bad taste of declaring in the midst of so much suffering owing to Pepeng and Ondoy.
There we have it: three for the opposition --- Erap, Noynoy and Chiz. Two for the administration, or should we say, one and a half --- Gibo and Ebdane. And one for the neither-here-nor-there species, Manny Villar.
Forward to the future, with voters choosing among yesterday’s men and tomorrow’s promise, and some in-between.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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