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When the blind pretend to have 20/20 vision
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star 2009-09-06
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We just have to blame the owners and managers of media for making us victims of people who offer the stupidest “considered opinions and analyses” which at times even border on idiocy. Because our country suffers from a big Information Gap, allowing these so-called analysts to offer their illogical and senseless theories borders on what can be called criminal.
In the wake of the resurgence of the Cory Aquino Magic which had thrust Senator Noynoy Aquino into the 2010 presidential race, there has been a spate of these so-called political analysts who are ever ready to offer their two-cents worth of conclusions.
We shall not name them in order to protect the guilty. Our intention is to alert the reading public from becoming victims to the bovine ordure that these charlatans are dishing with the witting or unwitting cooperation of media.
One of them, a professor of Political Science in a top university, noted the resurgence of the Cory Fever but wonders if Noynoy can translate this passion into votes. Hello! Do you really have anything up there, professor? Is that all you can come up with — that tired line that pertains to babes in the woods entering big time political arenas?
Can you believe this self-styled political guru who is asking the son of Ninoy Aquino if he can translate people’s passion into votes? Wasn’t Ninoy the most exciting vote getter of his time and is it possible at all that his only son would not know the dynamics of vote getting?
Can you believe this so-called professor who is asking if the son of Cory Aquino can translate people’s passion into votes? Cory did not just get the votes in 1986 (despite all the handicaps of no money, no media and so forth) but even inspired a People Power Revolution? If we know how this happened, is it logical to think that Cory’s only son would not know the secrets of his mother’s political success?
How can this so-called Political Science professor so easily forget that Noynoy Aquino landed sixth place in the 2007 Senate race even if he hardly generated media exposure, did not spend much on advertising and was even the target of harassment by a regime that was suspected of planting a candidate with a similar name in order to sabotage Noynoy’s Senate seat campaign?
If you know your Politics 101, you cannot overlook the point that machinery, money and media exposure are all tools for attempting to generate awareness, preference and passion in the voters for a candidate. Some candidates manage to get their winning votes when they succeed to generate awareness and preference.
It takes some doing to generate passion in voters. Passion means that the voters will not just want to vote for you but will go to the extent of campaigning for you, fighting and dying for you in some extreme cases. There was passion behind the victory of President Ramon Magsaysay and even greater passion in the ascendancy of Cory Aquino in 1986.
What Mar Roxas so nobly gave way to last Tuesday was the passion that he saw giving impetus to the Noynoy Aquino presidential candidacy. Before Cory’s passing thrust Noynoy into the 2010 presidential race, the battle was strictly confined to awareness and preference of the other presidential candidates. God and Cory changed all that.
In the light of what is happening in the 2010 presidential race, the reshaping of the political landscape — it borders on idiocy to ask if Noynoy Aquino can translate all that passion going for him into votes. Just what is there to translate into votes when the people are already the very ones who are campaigning for you and soon — will be spending for you?
Others harp on Noynoy’s experience and preparations to become 2010 president. So let’s establish a yardstick to establish if Noynoy has enough preparation to become a good president.
Despite the misadventure with martial law, Ferdinand Marcos was one of the best prepared presidents of the Philippines. At 49 years of age, Noynoy is older than former president Ferdinand Marcos when Marcos became Chief Executive in 1965 (at age 48). Noynoy had the benefit of more experienced political parents to prepare him to become president compared to the parents of President Marcos. Don Mariano Marcos and Dona Josefa Edralin Marcos cannot compare to Ninoy and Cory in terms of political savvy and presidential experience. Marcos had 16 years combined experience in Congress and the Senate compared to Noynoy’s 11 years and the five-year difference does not equate to lack of preparation.
Cory, whose presidency is fueling this passion for Noynoy to become our 2010 president, did not even have a quarter of the preparation of Noynoy. And yet, people are clamoring to relive the experience of those Cory years after the experiencing the twin disasters of the Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regimes.
That clamor for the trustworthiness of a presidency like that of Cory would underscore that people regard character as the more important criterion than so-called experience and preparation for the presidency. That would prove that people are not uninformed. They have learned from experience that the so-called “better preparation” for the job could easily translate to better skills in lying, stealing and killing.
This discussion, of course, extends the benefit of the doubt that these gainsayers are making their stupid and at times idiotic comments based on their better judgment and not because they are pledged to promote the presidential ambitions of the other wannabes.
Now, we ask:
1. Who can be better prepared for the presidency than the man with the genes of heroic parents? Won’t the heroism that he saw in his parents be the best guide on how he too can become a trustworthy public servant of the people?
2. Who can better empathize with the social injustice that the Filipino people are suffering than the man who suffered the injustice committed on his father who was jailed and eventually assassinated?
3. Who can better claim that he possesses the character that we can trust than the man whose family had undergone the pits of persecution and the heights of power but had not been badly affected at all by either experience?
If it is preparation and experience that will be the yardstick for choosing the most qualified to become president in 2010, all things considered, nobody comes close to Noynoy Aquino.
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