Voters should choose well

Think Bits

The importance of choosing the country’s next leaders cannot be emphasized enough, and I wish our people will fully assess, evaluate and determine the competence, capability and morals of the candidates they will vote for in next month’s elections.

The election is not just a political exercise inherent in each democracy; it forms part of its very essence.
Through the elections, the people can exert their sovereign right to choose whom they deem worthy enough to govern them in the next few years.

It goes without saying that the elections should also be honest, clean and orderly.
I know it is not going to be easy to choose the right people to govern us, but it is the people’s obligation and duty to elect government officials from the president down to the municipal councilors.

For president, we have the administration bet Mar Roxas, Vice President Jejomar Binay, Senators Grace Poe and Miriam Defensor Santiago and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

The latest survey showed that Duterte and Poe are neck and neck followed by Roxas and Binay. Many are asking why is it that Duterte and Poe are topping the surveys and Mar Roxas is playing catchup?

The answer is basically because Duterte and Poe offer changes while Roxas is defending and speaking for the Aquino administration.

Poe and Duterte are attractive to the people because they promised to change society’s ills like graft and corruption, peace and order, illegal drugs, labor contractualization, etc.

Roxas’s stance defends the administration’s policies and programs which aren’t perfect and are sometimes difficult to accept. He has the unenviable distinction to act as the administration’s apologist.

Roxas’s performance as a Cabinet secretary wasn’t exceptional, and his stint at the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) were soon followed by the mountain of problems facing the Light Railway Transit (LRT) and the Metro Railway Transit (MRT).

Binay has been hounded by graft and corruption allegations which have stuck in the public’s collective consciousness, making them wary of electing him. Sen. Miriam Santiago is sick and people don’t want to elect a sickly leader.

Sen. Poe is an attractive leader but dogged questions on her American citizenship continually hound her long after the Supreme Court cleared her to run. She also has no track record of public service except as chairperson of the Movie Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) and a three-year stint as senator of our country.

Mayor Duterte has become the most popular choice despite his penchant for indecent language like cursing Pope Francis, and he has exhibited inappropriate behavior in public.

But apparently many ordinary people don’t mind it because in a way, it practically reflects who they are. They’ve identified with him and thus they support him no matter the criticism leveled at him by his critics.

As far as the vice presidential race is concerned, there are Senators Antonio Trillanes IV, Allan Peter Cayetano, Gregorio Honasan, Francis Escudero, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo.

Robredo is the administration bet while Marcos, Cayetano and Trillanes are with the Nacionalista Party. But as seen in the vice presidential debate, being partymates didn’t prevent Cayetano and Trillanes from hitting Sen. Marcos’s family legacy of corruption and martial law.

Honasan and Escudero are running mates of Binay and Poe respectively. While Escudero topped the surveys initially, Marcos made a strong showing despite the growing anti-Marcos sentiment of those who lived through the martial law years.

But Robredo’s strong showing in the recent mobile survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS) showed that the voting public found her decent, upright and simple. A public official who isn’t afraid to take the bus from Naga City.

I am hoping and praying that the Filipinos would be enlightened and vote into office capable and qualified people who can lead the country to a bright future.