Mudslinging

Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle sounded perhaps a bit naïve when he said that the candidates’ thirst for power is what drives up the mudslinging that usually characterizes the campaign period.

One need only look at the ongoing US campaign period starring businessman Donald Trump who has been lording it over the others in terms of insulting just about every sector of American society as a prime example of mudslinging for the sake of achieving power.

But for anything derogatory that can be said of the American multi-billionaire, it can be said that he’s one of the very few exceptions in quite a long line of US aspirants to the presidency that had become a source of embarrassment and jokes for prime time TV talk show hosts to the American people.

Here in the Philippines, mudslinging can range from the downright gutter level nasty to the artistic. Rather than dwell on the specifics, let’s say for now that the parameters of freedom of speech and expression as well as common decency are pushed each time these see the light of day.

Thanks to social media, hundreds of thousands of memes and edited video clips have been posted and reposted by the camps of each candidate and their followers both to advance their agenda and to win more converts to their cause.

But what some may consider mudslinging, others may call just exposing the truth as in the case of candidates like Vice President Jejomar Binay, who always blames the mountain of graft cases filed against him as nothing but the handiwork of political enemies out to derail him in his quest for the presidency.

Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Mar Roxas and his followers may also describe as mudslinging the constant stream of memes and video clips in social media that show him as an incompetent, fair- weather, flip-flopping, unreliable leader who failed to pass the test of competency and leadership in resolving the plight of the Yolanda victims and other victims of natural calamities.

Followers of both Sen. Grace Poe and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte can also cry mudslinging when their candidates are shown to lack either qualifications or the moral fitness to lead the country.

Mudslinging may perhaps refer to attacks on one’s person and family which have nothing to do with how he or she assumes his or her performance as a public official, but the boundaries between the personal and public often intertwine and cross the line, as in the case of Binay’s son, former Makati City Mayor Junjun

Binay, who was clearly shown in a security video using his power to bully security guards of a subdivision that he visited three years ago.

In this respect, we can only trust the judgment of the Filipino voter in looking beyond the mudslinging to determine the kind of candidates that deserve his or her support in the elections.