‘Unfortunately, ours is a country whose electorate prefers to be regaled with song and dance rather than serious policy discussions. It is one that has proven gullible…’
I WAS, by chance, drawn into a lunchtime discussion of politics two days ago and it ended up being a two-hour discussion of everything from comparing presidents (“You couldn’t come unprepared to a meeting with GMA”) to, of course, discussing the many possible permutations for 2022. There was talk of a Sara-BBM ticket, or a BBM-Sara ticket, or of an Isko-Pacquiao tandem. There was talk of a Robredo candidacy, but we didn’t get to dwell on who would be the ideal VP for the VP.
We had a consensus on a couple of issues, one being that the vote for President should also be a vote for the Vice President. For the life of me, after copying a lot from the Americans, I do not know who proposed that we Filipinos should be allowed — encouraged even — to split our votes for President and Vice President. That the idea was even raised by our elder statesmen when they were first debating the system of our government surprises me, and that it was passed and made part of the Constitution, remains the law to this day and has become ingrained in our consciousness as electors disappoint and disturb me.
What’s the use, for goodness sake, of putting up a ticket when you can end up in bed with someone else, perhaps a sworn enemy?
Maybe it’s seen as a form of check and balance?
In my humble opinion, future constitutional revision should put an end to split voting. A vote for the presidential candidate is a vote for the vice presidential candidate. We vote for a ticket.
At one point, when there was a lull in what was at times some spirited discussion, one of my lunchmates asked the other three of us: which of the combinations we discussed is best for the country? This provoked some deep thinking in the two others with me, but I was fast to reply. Half-jokingly and half-cynically I said, “forget the country,” which provoked a round of laughter. But the question was again propounded: “No, seriously, which would be the best combination?”
And to this one of my lunch companions said: “The ones proposed by JB in his column last Monday.”
He was referring to my piece entitled “Perfect Combination,” where I put forward the idea that two men I knew well for their competence and dedication and principles — the very same reasons for which they won’t be electable — made up what for me was the perfect tandem for 2022. This consisted of Richard Gordon for President, and corporate CEO and political neophyte Martin Antonio (Dennis) Zamora of Nickel Asia, for Vice President.
Unfortunately, ours is a country whose electorate prefers to be regaled with song and dance rather than serious policy discussions. It is one that has proven gullible as election promises turned into jokes, and as if that we’re not bad enough it is an electorate that does not care to punish those who have made a joke out of them.
And that’s neither Dick nor Dennis, though Dennis could croon in a way that can make the ladies swoon, given his Green Archer days as a member of an all-male choir.
When he was running for President in 1976, Jimmy Carter released an autobiography whose title was taken from a conversation he had as a Navy man with Admiral Hyman Rickover, one of the US Navy’s most respected former chiefs. Carter recalled an encounter with Rickover where the latter engaged the junior officer in some discussion, at which point Rickover was provoked to ask Carter the question that Carter then used as the title of his book.
I dread to think that we as a people will again approach another election with the same attitude as before — voting for people we know because we know them (or think we do) over someone else who may be the best choice. “Better the devil we know” as some may put it.
Which is an admission that we’re voting for a devil, yes?
So: why not the best?