The campaign
BY DUCKY PAREDES
The campaign
DUCKY PAREDES
‘Has the worth of a senator been depreciated so badly?’
THE way our election laws are written and interpreted, we look like one silly nation. We have laws that are supposed to limit spending by politicians and parties. Other laws would discourage political dynasties, early campaigning and other practices of traditional politicians.
Have these laws been enforced? Yes, but they have also become unenforceable because everyone, including the courts have found loopholes that allow just about anyone to do as he pleases.
There can be no campaigning before the campaign period has begun; but, since the campaign period has not yet begun, how can you say that the person who is delivering a speech at every street corner is campaigning? Obviously, he is not yet a candidate because the campaign period has not yet started. How can anyone be a candidate when the campaign period has not yet begun? Candidates begin their candidacy with the start of the campaign period. Thus, whatever anyone is doing cannot be campaigning since there are still no candidates before the campaign period begins.
Why have laws that are unenforceable?
Our constitution clearly states that no president may aspire for a second presidency. The office is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and may not be repeated.
While our Constitution is poorly written, as for instance, where it says: "The President shall not be eligible for any reelection," it is clear that whoever wrote this cannot be a person born to the English language.
What is "any reelection"? How many types or varieties of reelection are there? When it says "the President" does this apply only to the sitting president or does the use of "any reelection" actually mean that anyone who has served as president cannot run for "any reelection?"
I believe that the courts must guide us all in how to interpret this provision which I have always thought meant that once anyone has served as president, he is no longer eligible for a second chance.
Today, someone who has served as president (albeit an interrupted presidency) will be filing his Certificate of Candidacy for the office that he lost. Hopefully, the courts, which can now take notice of a complaint from any voter once the former president files his intention to run again for the office that he once occupied, will immediately rule on the matter.
One notes that there is a dearth of aspirants for the Senate; most parties will not be able to present a complete line-up of 12. Has the worth of a senator been depreciated so badly? Some candidates are running as independents not because no one wants them but because they cannot stand being in the same room with others whom they regard as politically unclean. How can such persons work with other senators whose views and beliefs may differ from theirs?
The whole purpose of a campaign is to change voters’ persuasions.
If one’s ratings will not change during a campaign, then, one’s campaign is a miserable failure. For now, the four major parties in the order of their rankings are the Liberal Party (with Senators Benigno Aquino III for president and Manuel Roxas for vice president), the Nacionalista Party (with Senators Manuel Villar for president and Loren Legarda for vice president), the UNO (with former President Joseph Estrada for president and Mayor Jejomar Binay for vice president and Lakas-Kampi-CMD (with Gilbert Teodoro for president and Eduardo Manzano for vice president).
The most interesting of these is the team of Teodoro and Manzano who cannot go anywhere but up. They are so low in their present popularity ratings, that their campaign must succeed in improving their standing in the popularity ratings if they will have any chance at all of winning. The best news for them is that the worst things have already happened to them. Their party has had a huge exodus of party loyalists pledging loyalty mostly to the NPs and the LPs.
Teodoro has been tested by the recent storms as head of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) and a massacre of their Muslim party mates by another group of their own Muslim party mates.
Teodoro is, however, more than any of the other candidates, running his campaign himself with hardly any interference from anyone. He will probably have less than six senatorial candidates and will not accept guest candidates. Gibo is free to say just about anything that he wants to say with no possibility that this will cause anyone from his party to bolt. Those who would have probably already left.
His VP choice, Edu Manzano, is so under-rated that if he can come up with just about anything at all, he is bound to move up, right there with the favored VP candidates – LP’s Roxas and NP’s Legarda.
Whatever the fortunes of the Estrada-Binay tandem cannot be known until the court decides on the cases that will surely be filed against the former president’s running for "any reelection."
The Villar-Legarda team seems to have passed the first hurdle when half of the Senate voted to absolve Villar of any wrongdoing on a complaint filed against him by two senators. Their campaign will probably be the traditional campaign, which has proven its worth in previous elections.
The current leaders – Aquino and Roxas – actually have the larger problem. They have attracted a lot of the young whose idealism makes them easy to disappoint. In making hard decisions during the campaign – as in who to support in local contests – the chance that they will disappoint many of their idealistic followers is greater than in the other parties. Of course if Noynoy can show that he can inspire them with his leadership, then, perhaps, the election will have been decided very early on.
"Contrary to what the oppositionists are saying, reproductive health promotes the freedom of an individual to found a family. Reproductive health does not promote abortion but rather prevents it." – Ben de Leon, The Forum for Family Planning and Development president.
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