Experience

When reports surfaced that Sen. Grace Poe is closing in on the lead built by Vice President Jejomar Binay in a recent survey, Binay  was rather quick to comment about what he felt was the country’s need to vote for an “experienced leader” in next year’s elections.

The reference is so obvious you don’t need a dictionary to see the meaning behind his  statement.

The senator is riding high on the crest of the high public approval rating on her performance as the chairperson of the Senate committee that investigated the Mamasapano massacre and how it practically outshone the inquiry done by the House.

But to give him the benefit of the doubt, we have to admit that Binay has the career experience to make a run for the presidency. In his statement about experience, the vice president pointed to the US which had several governors who went on to become leaders of the (still) most powerful nation in the world like the late Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, whose wife Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is also running for the presidency in 2016.

Binay also conveniently forgot that some senators also ran and won the presidency, including the incumbent President Aquino who came from the ranks of Congress. Aquino’s father, the late senator Benigno Aquino Jr. would have also made a successful run for the presidency were it not for Martial Law.

Speaking of which the late author of that Martial Law has a son who’s now a senator and is also being groomed to run for the presidency, though the  stigma would be used against him.

However, Binay may also be referring to another local executive like Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who signified his intention to run for the presidency and has several years of local governance tucked under his belt, years which made him famous/infamous as the mayor with zero tolerance for crime.

Then again, when Binay speaks about experience, the public is exposed to another side of the vice president, namely the stories of corruption involving billions of pesos worth of taxpayers’ money that was invested in everything ranging from an air-conditioned piggery, a hotel with suites for visiting local officials and real estate properties that belie his “common man” status.

As had been shown with former president and now Manila City Mayor Joseph Estrada, the Filipino public has no need for elected public officials with that kind of “experience.”

But Binay has a point. Sen. Poe has goodwill and the benefit of some semblance of government experience but as President Aquino had so clearly shown with his bumbling on the Luneta Park hostage crisis and the Mamasapano massacre that resulted in the deaths of Chinese tourists and Special Action Forces (SAF) police commandos, this country needs a leader who can effectively manage the country’s affairs without corruption tainting his or her tenure.