Plans, Promises, and Pleadings of Candidates During Philippine Electoral Campaigns
Posted on Sunday, 7 February 2016
Plans,
Promises, and Pleadings of
Candidates
During Philippine Electoral Campaigns
By Apolinario Villalobos
The electoral campaigns in the Philippines
are treated by Filipinos as both spectacle and financial opportunity.
Candidates assume different convincing facial expressions as they blurt out
plans and promises if they are voted to the position and these are spiced up
with pleadings that are made colorful with courteous vernacular words such as,
“po”, “ho”, “opo”, “oho”, “natin”. Audiences are entertained by singers and
dancers from the showbiz industry. Virtually, during electoral campaigns,
corrupt personalities become saintly, and worse, demean themselves by being
funny as they take the risk of being ridiculed – all in the name of the dirty
Philippine politics. As a financial opportunity, well….vote-buying is done in
the open, no question about that.
Mar Roxas plans to transfer the Manila
International Airport to Clark Airbase. He must be dizzy when he mentioned this
during an interview. He forgot about the terribly unpredictable traffic along
the South Luzon Expressway going through which would take at least three hours
before a motorist from Metro Manila could make it to the first Bulacan town.
The reality is, if one would come from the Metro Manila area, he or she has to
muster, yet, any of the hellish traffic along EDSA, Pasay, Roxas Boulevard,
Commonwealth and Rizal Avenue. Passengers are used to reaching the airport
today from their residence within the city or the suburbs such as Cavite,
Laguna, Novaliches, and Antipolo in just about two or three hours depending on
the unpredictable traffic. With the transfer of the airport to Clark, they must
allow at least six hours, inclusive of the two hours leeway for the check-in
before the published departure time. Worst is if the passenger will have to
commute by bus to Clark. To be safe, a passenger will have to spend for an
overnight somewhere around Clark Air Base if he or she is taking a flight the
following day. Even if the government will offer free shuttle service, the same
hellish traffic will be dealt with along
the way.
Roxas keeps on promising the continuance of
the programs of the administration to which he is so much attached as if with
strong sentimentality. What is there to continue, anyway?...the obvious inept
and insensitive attitude?...and still, another big question is, has there been
anything accomplished that benefits at least the majority of the impoverished?
If he is talking about the cash being doled out, such program is still being questioned,
as in some areas it is allegedly tainted with graft. If he is talking about the “progress” based on
statistics, this too, is being viewed as dubiously self-serving. He should
also, not forget that the administration still has to answer many questions as
regards the fate of donations for the typhoon Yolanda victims, aside from so
many other issues with the hottest, as the Mamasapano massacre and the
purported well-concealed pork barrel in the just-approved budget. It would do
him good at least, if he scraps out the “tuwid na daan” from his campaign
statements and just promise what he can do. He should make people believe in
his capability, not in his association with Aquino whose reputation is
debatable. As for being not corrupt, he could claim that.
Duterte is promising to eradicate
criminality and corruption in six months or he would resign. Unless heads will
roll at least within the first two months upon his assumption if elected, he
better be prepared with a resignation statement. How can he control the
undisciplined and financially-pampered Congress? For a town, city, or province,
this may be possible, but not for a nation whose law-making bodies got
calloused with corruption.
Binay on the other hand, keeps on saying
that he is not corrupt. He must be imagining that the Filipinos are idiot! It
is suggested that the word “corrupt” be not ever mentioned in any of his
campaign ads, or uttered by him. He should, instead, promise hospitals and
terminal buildings to be built during his incumbency…and find out if his
listeners will boo him just like what he experienced in Cebu.
Candidates for the 2016 election know that
plans and promises during the past electoral campaigns were made to be broken,
so they will do it, too. They should not be meddling in politics if they are
not honestly aware of this fact. Those that will come after them will again
make promises, propose plans, and plead, as expected. During the electoral
campaign that will follow, it will be done again….still, again and again…..a
vicious cycle of the dirty Philippine politics!
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