Who is right? They cannot both be right, of course. What is probably happening is that each is seeing only one side of the situation. So, how are we to know who is seeing things the right way – the GO or Team Unity?

So, why not a debate between the leading contenders in the senatorial derby? Perhaps, a public debate on specific points of dissonance will put some sense into what is turning out to be the silliest ever of all our elections. Let us forget about the songs and dances and the campaign t-shirts and the four G’s – guns, gold, goons and girls – and force these candidates to compete for our minds by having these prospective senators debate the matter of where this country is rally going. Hopefully, in the exercise, they could also begin to form platforms that would indicate actual differences between the two main contending senatorial teams.

Then, perhaps, we would be able to make intelligent electoral choices, rather than just relying on our biases in choosing whom we will vote for.

Clearly, looking at the economy from the macro viewpoint, Gloria Arroyo, the economics doctor and teacher, has done a tremendous job. All the key indicators are up. The peso is stable and increasing in value, prices are low, and reserves are up. You name the standard by which to judge her performance and she has topped just about every other president who has led this country.

The question that begs to be answered, however, is why so many of us are still leading miserable lives.

Both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and international credit rating agencies, institutional fund managers and just about everyone who grades countries’ economies agree that the Philippines has finally and fully recovered from the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In fact, the WB and the ADB have raised their growth forecasts for the country in view of the fiscal stability that they see from the implementation of the Expanded Value-Added Tax (EVAT). Notes Joachim Von Amsberg, WB country manager for the Philippines: "A 2010 takeoff is possible for the Philippines with few structural impediments and many good policies in place."

In 2006, the country’s economy grew by 5.4 percent. According to the National Economic Development authority (NEDA), this would have been even better had it not been for typhoons that hit us in the last quarter of 2006. Still, in the fourth quarter, local consumption grew by 5.5 percent, exports by 12.1 percent and government spending by 5.7 percent. All these plus the cash inflows from our OFWs pushed the last quarter GNP growth in 2006 to 6.2 percent! This is an actual and a real figure.

The expansion of business process outsourcing (BPO) has helped create a new middle class of young, upwardly mobile BPO workers who are also a source of growth of consumer consumption that definitely adds to the GNP growth.

Malacañang also points to the latest Hopelessness Survey of the Social Weather Stations that, contrary to the claims of the GO to the contrary, in the fourth quarter of 2006, nine out of ten Filipinos had become optimistic about their future.

In fact, Malacañang claims that it is mostly talks about political instability, not the over-all good results in the economic field that has been holding us back. Now, however, with the political fever at a low and with what it sees as the coming victory of Team Unity, Malacañang sees a hope for full support of the President’s programs from both legislatures, including the Senate that has been a hotbed of politicking even as the country has actually done very well in the economic field.

Malacañang also points out that only last week, local oil prices dropped again, the fourth such rollback this year. Thus, the general public has been saving up to P1.80 per liter from all these rollbacks. Public transport prices have also steadied at P7, from P8.50 previously, due to the downturn in oil prices.

This is the Malacañang interpretation, which is, of course, diametrically opposed to the view of the GO candidates.

To my mind, the best way to test who sees things more clearly is for a structured debate between the candidate of the GO and Team Unity – in Plaza Miranda or, perhaps even better yet, during a Comelec Hour where senatorial candidates will be invited weekly – two from each side – to look at specific issues and discuss them as mature, sober individuals. It would beat the spectacle of senatorial candidates dancing pakendeng-kendeng for the cameras in an effort to attract voters to go for them.

Who’s afraid of giving the voters real choices instead of limiting their choices to who is the better dancer and whose television commercials are the glitzier?

***

"The opposition can do their worst during the campaign while we try to do our best to serve the people. This plan of producing a malicious movie against the administration will backfire. The people no longer wish to belabor the past but want an earnest discussion of our agenda – investments, jobs, lower prices rolled up in a package of hope and opportunity. By peddling another package of vitriol and negativism, the opposition only wishes to satisfy its muckraking instincts at the expense of the economic gains of the people." – Secretary Ignacio R. Bunye

So, are we gonna have a debate? Yes?