According to some, shifting to a parliamentary system is the smarter thing to do because (pardon the undemocratic thought) most Pinoys do not know how to choose their national leaders. If we err in choosing presidents, we also do so in choosing senators who are elected by the same national electorate.

We do better choosing local officials. We have many outstanding mayors and governors because the voters can match the candidates to the needs of their communities. This is an easier do for voters than vetting candidates for national positions.

(I have been a judge in several beauty contests and have found that Pinoy judges – and Pinays, too – will always give extra additional points for height and for paler skin color. In looking over the candidates, I can almost always spot the eventual winner. Someone who is taller and whiter than the rest will – nine times out of 10 – win the voting whether this is done by the judges or by the audience. Maybe the fact that the telenovelas that we now watch, which invariably have Koreans or Spanish characters pre-disposes us to make choices based on skin color, in the same way that, the statues of saints coming from Europe in the colonial period made us think that white skin was better than brown and white men were our superiors.)

Sadly, the way we choose our senators is more akin to our choosing beauty queens than the way we chose our local officials. Clearly, we have no real standards in choosing national officials and the candidates know this, too, and take advantage of the voters’ ignorance. Thus, to campaign well, the candidates do not talk issue or missions. Instead, they tell jokes, stories, sing and dance. They entertain the voters the same way that a touring comedian would. Sadly, this wins them votes.

Looking over the notables among the candidates for the Senate, one wonders why there are no accomplished individuals among them. Why are there no candidates from among successful Pinoys? Why, in spite of the fact that there are so many amongst us who have excelled in their fields, are these successful Pinoys not in the candidates’ lists?

One whom I would elevate to the Senate in the blink of an eyelash, for instance, would be Tony Meloto, the initiator of Gawad Kalinga. What a great idea! And, one sees it happening all over and, almost miraculously, transforming communities.

When the Magsaysay Award was given to Tony last year, the citation said, in part:

"Today more than eight hundred fifty Gawad Kalinga villages span the Philippines. Alongside those sponsored by expatriate Filipinos, such as Norway Village, Swiss Village, and North Carolina Village, there are more than one hundred others sponsored by major corporations. And this is just the beginning. Gawad Kalinga is committed to building seven thousand new communities by the year 2010.

"Gawad Kalinga neighborhoods typically contain fifty-to-one-hundred brightly painted homes and are conspicuously tidy and clean. There are flowers and plants and pleasant walkways, plus a school, a livelihood center, and a multipurpose hall. Participating families are mentored by a Couples-for-Christ caretaker team that organizes volunteers to assist in education, health, and livelihood projects. In many, clinics provide routine medical care. Through a self-governing neighborhood association in each village, residents are becoming stewards of their own stable and vibrant communities.

"The objective is transformation. Meloto recently described a mature Gawad Kalinga village as ‘a beautiful middle-class community. Crime has virtually disappeared. Former street children are now in school. The idle have been motivated to find employment and are now leading productive lives.’ As for those who contribute to Gawad Kalinga and its mission, they are transformed, too, by their acts of goodwill and the warm camaraderie of bayanihan, ‘working together.’"

The Rotary Club of Pasig is now helping to put together a GK Village and we are finding out that the GK Village does force its residents to undergo a transformation. What Meloto says actually works.

Of course, if one offered a Senate seat to Tony Meloto, he would probably refuse, since the work that he is doing in Gawad Kalinga is actually a greater service to the country than anything that a senator could accomplish in a lifetime of being a senator. At the same time, can Tony sing, dance and tell jokes and does he have the ability to throw away close to a billion pesos just to win the election? One doubts that someone like him would have the stomach for that. Thus, he would probably lose the election, anyway.

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A reader who wants to stay anonymous asks about the GK villages: If the private sector can build housing in this way at a cost of only P60,000 per unit, why cannot the government adopt the GK way of doing things and build homes for everyone?

I can only comment that the reader’s question is so logical and makes so much sense that this is probably why government will not go into doing things the GK way. What would happen to the contractors who build these houses if the residents themselves will now build their own units? And what of the informal commissions that government functionaries usually receive?

Honestly, I do not know why the government will not do it the way that GK does. In building schoolhouse, the FFCCCI makes schoolhouses that are given to government at a great discount to the cost of schoolhouses built by the government. One would think that the smarter way to go would be to get the FFCCCI to build all our schoolhouses wouldn’t it? But, government still continues to build the schoolhouse themselves at an overprice to those built by the chamber.