There were fireworks all right in last Sunday’s PiliPinas presidential debate at the University of the Philippines Cebu (UP Cebu) but it was a slow burn, no thanks to Vice President Jejomar Binay’s decision to bring notes to the event even if it was prohibited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
It was Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who lit the fuse, so to speak, when he dared Binay to sign a waiver for his bank accounts. Binay made a show of dropping some papers which drew event host Luchi Cruz-Valdez’s attention and caused her to emphatically remind the vice president of the rule against bringing notes to the debate.
Even when Binay retorted that it was a document and not notes, it was enough incentive for Duterte, Sen. Grace Poe and Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Mar Roxas to unload their verbal offensives on the Vice President.
From then on it was a free-for-all and the audience, who had been kept waiting for far too long, was only too happy to cheer and jeer. In no time at all they made their sentiments known in social media and Binay was pilloried as the spoiled student who insisted on an open-notes exam while others had burned the midnight oil.
There were lots of highlights but it was clear that Duterte and Poe were the major beneficiaries of the debate. Duterte went to town with his well-timed potshots at Roxas–“hindi mo alam kasi wala kang alam (you don’t know because you don’t know anything)”–while Poe was the calm and sober one among the candidates.
Binay may have borne the brunt of the verbal barrage but Roxas also sustained major damage not only from Duterte but Poe who found him a convenient target for everything that the Aquino administration did wrong, including Manila’s traffic woes.
It’s to be expected but while Binay chose to keep a low profile, resorting to the usual promises and taking potshots at Roxas, the LP standard-bearer failed to rise to the occasion and appeared quite hapless, like a soaked kite twisting in the middle of a typhoon like Yolanda.
We can only imagine how much livelier the debate would have been if Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago showed up. Two days after the debate, expect the candidates to repair the cracks and gloss over whatever chinks were found in their performance regardless if it reflects public opinion.
By the time this piece comes out, we wonder whether any of the candidates had created a good enough impression on the voting public, enough to convince them to vote for him/her.
There is still the third round to be held in Manila but the organizers will be hard-pressed to top last Sunday’s event.
We can only hope the event hosts manage to ask the tougher questions and prevent any candidate from turning the debate into a mere sideshow circus.
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