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In more than one conversation, we hear the emphatic
statement that Filipinos are a creative lot and hardworking, too.
“Magaling” in the colloquial. The Filipino worker is held up as
a model employee. Why, even Filipino nannies are the preferred
choice anywhere in the world. If only we are provided with the right
incentive or the proper environment. The repeated examples are
performing as executives in regional companies or following traffic
rules in foreign countries.
Another common refrain is only if
we had discipline or had a benevolent dictator to lead us, the world
is ours for the taking. Then we dive into a litany of the woes of
our politicians as leaders and the failure of governance in every
nook and cranny. We formulate our own save-the-country philosophy
and proclaim our cause without thinking if this is not a consequence
of our own folly.
We may be that good and more but
truly di nga ba bobo ang Pinoy?
Election after election since we
“won” our independence, we manage to elect a mixed group of
leaders who manifest their best intentions to do their best for us.
Surely there have been a few good ones but the sad part of our story
is the slew of bad ones and some of them can get really, really bad.
The challenge is again upon us this May election and in a sense it
marks a watershed year—the year when we collectively decide to
exercise our common sense or let our bobo-ness prevail once again.
This bobo-ness consists of voting
into office candidates based on their popularity. What does a Best
Actor reward have to do with passing meaningful laws? How come
delivering a knock-out punch is considered deliverance into public
office? Why does a media personality deserve pork barrel? Already
and specially this time, we see a more discerning electorate in the
surveys and in outbursts from the man on the street. There is a
growing awareness that one’s popularity or being a TV personality
does not equate to being a good politician. Note the oxymoron but I
digress. Politicians always look for the limelight.
I said previously that certainly
any patriotic Filipino has the right to stand for office. However,
it would be a brainless for any senator to jump into a boxing ring
simply because he ranked first. It is stupid for a congressman to
start aspiring for an Oscar because he won 80 percent of the popular
vote. The converse is true.
What is most important in this
discussion of bobo-ness is this: without using the standard of
name-recall, how do we really know whom we should cast our precious
vote for? For the educated ones, we ourselves cannot tell evil from
good. All the candidates spew rhetoric that warm the hearts were it
not for our cynicism. All of them promise heaven and more heaven if
only they were in power or returned to power. We don’t believe
them and yet, what choice do we have? From among the contestants,
how do we judge aside from our surface information and what little
we know of issues aside from gathered anecdotes?
Alas, the flaw in our democratic
system is that it is governance by perception. Those who can either
portray themselves favorably to all or manipulate the system for
their benefit. Is the antidote simply to vote for people we
haven’t heard about on election date? Surely, the poorer and
lesser known candidates will be more sincere and truthful. But
horrors of horrors with a little inspection, is this not a bigger
sell-out akin to the dumb vote? There is just no structure to guide
us or mechanism to enlighten us. Even the lights in the Church can
only come up with general statements. “Bobo nga ba ang Pinoy?”
is a question, which definitely requires an intelligent answer and
we need it fast.
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