‘…when confronted with lists of wannabes, ask yourself: when do I consider a politician disqualified from holding public office?’

BY Tuesday next week, politicians and politician-wannabes all over the country will troop to the various offices of the Commission on Elections to file their certificates of candidacy for the elections in May of next year. At stake are half of the Senate, all seats in the House of Representatives, and every provincial, city and municipal position.

To be clear, there are 24 senators so 12 seats will be contested, and there are 316 seats in the lower house, 253 rep-resenting legislative districts and 63 from party lists. There are 82 provinces, and 1642 cities and municipalities all over the country. So you can imagine how much fun we will again be having, and how much money will be flowing.

This early, I’ve seen the list put out by the Marcos administration naming its Senate slate, a combination of incum-bents running for re-election (Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Imee, Bong Revilla and Francis Tolentino), former senators (Ping Lacson, Manny Pacquiao and Tito Sotto), House members wishing to get “promoted” to the smaller but upper chamber (Erwin Tulfo and Camille Villar), and two with Mayoralty experience now wishing to become legislators (BenHur Abalos and Abby Binay).

On the other hand, the Liberal Party has indicated an interest in fielding Kiko Pangilinan, Bam Aquino and Chel Diokno for the Senate, while the Dutertes, through PDP Laban, are fielding Bong Go, Bato dela Rosa and Philip Salvador and maybe a few more.

The list is interesting. It is a mixed bag of the proven, the promising, and the “por Dios, por Santo,” at least as far as I am concerned. And this early, I think I can already say that my 12 will be a mixed bag – chosen from two of the three slates that I have identified above. Just don’t ask me which slate I am not going to choose from.

During elections, from the many who present themselves, I always identify those who, in my book, are disqualified. I don’t always find one or two, but my criteria are clear and simple. Anyone who has been the subject of an investiga-tion or, worse, a court case that involves taking the life of someone else or pocketing funds of the Filipino people drops down my scale of electable, falling even further below the ranking of my only-when-needed driver, and to think that the latter is not even running for office.

How about being involved in, say, an extramarital affair or a sex scandal? To me, these are not as disqualifying and in fact are welcome as they provide fodder for the Maritess of this world, the only qualification being if the other indi-vidual involved is a minor, then that ranks close to taking a life or pocketing public funds.

In the case of an acquittal, I remain wary. Furthermore, I strongly believe that we must apply the “Caesar’s wife” test if we want to improve the quality of the public servants we call “Honorable” while trying so hard not to barf.

This is why where US presidential politics is concerned, Trump is a non-entity in my book. Never mind the cases against his fraudulent businesses, from the Trump University to the Trump steaks to the foundation that siphoned off funds for children with cancer. But someone who eggs his supporters to storm the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent the Senators and Congressmen from certifying the results of an election as Trump did on January 6, 2021 – is disqualifying.

Add to that his phone call to Georgia state election officials asking them to find him over 11,700 votes so he could overcome the lead of rival Joe Biden and, in the process win the state of Georgia, its electoral votes and hence the electoral college – is another disqualifying matter. No one should be returned to office if, in his previous capacity, he did what he could to violate the oath he had taken to uphold the law of the land as well as the Constitution itself.

While I consider myself a sympathizer of the Democratic Party in US elections, I’ve learned to admire, or like, or both admire and like several Republican politicians such as Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and John McCain, and, de-spite the Watergate scandal that properly ended his presidency, Richard Nixon earns raves from me especially for his geopolitical views.

Elections, we must remember, are as much about you and me as voters as it is about the people we choose to en-trust our government to. If they do poorly, then that means we have chosen poorly. If they do well, not only does that mean we have chosen well, but we are also immensely benefited by our choice.

Remember that elections are akin to a company hiring people, and we the electorate are the Human Resources de-partment, tasked with putting the candidates through the hoop to test their mettle and identify who deserves the job.

And that’s why we must have criteria that are clear and a line (or lines) that should not be crossed, otherwise, the candidate is disqualified from even being considered.

So let’s try this for 2025: when confronted with lists of wannabes, ask yourself: when do I consider a politician dis-qualified from holding public office? Then strike his or her name immediately from the list!