"Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead." Chanakya
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- If ever we will amend the Philippine constitution, we must ask our constitutional convention delegates to include provisions in the electoral process that any candidate who will resort to name-calling and character assassination during the campaign period should be disqualified.
Let's admit it. Some of the candidates in the 2016 elections lack the moral scruples to hold a public office.
Our electoral system has become a kaleidoscope of moral and spiritual bankruptcy; aspirants for public office are a hodgepodge of Sancho Panzas and Emperors Nero and Claudius.
We understand that there is a gnawing concern about the wanton abuse by some wackos to ridicule our electoral process by filing their certificates of candidacy (COCs) for certain higher national positions not to win (and even without the capacity to wage a decent campaign) but only to land in the front-page and to get media attention.
CLOWNS
We understand the frustration of those who detest seeing the names of mediocre personalities and popular clowns in the Comelec list of official candidates but are forced to belabor themselves browsing over the names of rightful candidates on the same list only because the constitution allows even escapees from mental institutions to run for president. Que horror!
Under our squalid and abnormal system, popular movie comedians and athletes, coup plotters, ex-convicts, rapists and children of celebrities can run for higher positions even if they didn't finish high school.
Thus under the Peter Principle, quality legislation becomes the number one casualty if these cretins are elected in the Senate and House of Representatives.
-o0o-
Vice President Jejomar Binay should quit while he is still on top, some political wisecracks suggest.
We might ask why would anyone leading in a presidential campaign drop out?
Because he can't win. And Binay hates defeat.
Rumor has it that there's a woman in Calinog, Iloilo named "Brenda" who hasn't heard of Binay.
But besides her, everyone in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao knows who Binay is.
Binay's popularity in the last quarter of 2014 can be compared to Erap Estrada's name-recall strength in 1998.
RECOGNITION
The former Mabini lawyer (who started his political career after the 1986 EDSA Revolution) has virtually 100 percent name recognition, and still he can't manage to break beyond the 25 percent to 30 percent or so of disaffected members of the hoi polloi supporting him.
And, as manifested in the most recent surveys, many of those supporters are beginning to drift.
Either they went to Sen. Grace Poe or to Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
In short, Binay hit his apex weeks ago.
It's only a slide from here.
The Sandiganbayan ruling that ousted his suspended Makati mayor son, Junjun, could be the last straw in Binay's Cinderella-like candidacy that is now on spaghetti legs.
Showing posts with label Philippine elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philippine elections. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2015
Monday, October 28, 2013
Brgy. Chairman Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe." Theodore Roosevelt
By Alex P. Vidal
THERE was no neuro test required when candidates for barangay elections filed their certificates of candidacy, so we can't expect that all winners in the October 28 elections are sane.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should be empowered to cancel or to declare as null and void the victory of any barangay official--chairman or councilman-- found to be unfit mentally or with serious case of neurosis.
So many cases of insanity involving barangay officials have been recorded in the past.
Instead of becoming an asset to the smallest political unit in the country, elected barangay officials with brain damage have become thorns and liabilities.
We remember one case in Iloilo City where a punong barangay or village chief missed a lot of opportunities to serve his constituents because he had to spend much of his time in the psychiatric ward of the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC) in the early 90s.
GATHERING
In one media gathering held at the RPTA Hall of the old Iloilo provincial capitol sometime in December 1992, a deranged village chief suddenly barged inside and threatened to throw a grenade to the crowd.
Broadcaster Sol Genson pacified the lunatic and convinced him to leave the premises.
He listened to Sol, his drinking buddy at Virgo night club.
Earlier when the late Pres. Cory Aquino appointed Rosa "Tita" Caram as OIC city mayor in April 1986, another lunatic village chief asked the first lady mayor in Iloilo City to extend the route of Dinagyang tribes to Port San Pedro "so that people of Guimaras and Negros can watch the event."
Caram dismissed his "crazy" idea.
A village chief in Jaro district always brought a monkey in the barangay hall because "the monkey had helped me a lot when I won in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire show."
He accused a barangay councilman of poisoning the monkey, who died under a mysterious circumstance.
The lunatic village chief wanted to bury the animal at Christ The King Cemetery using barangay funds.
"I oppose!" shouted the barangay councilman, the suspect in the monkey's death, who came to our office at Sun Star to report the "abuse of authority."
HELP
Former Iloilo Gov. Sim Grino had to ask the help of provincial tourism officer Manny Benedicto to escort a disoriented village chief from Dumangas back from capitol to the lunatic's municipality because he kept on addressing Gov. Grino as "Congressman Monfort" and refused to leave the governor's office.
"Indi ako si Narsing (4th district Rep. Narciso Monfort). Si Sim ako. Gob Sim Grino kapila ka na gid hambalan (I am Gov. Sim Grino and I have already told you this repeatedly)," an irate Grino ribbed the village chief.
"Lakat ta kap makadto ta kay Narsing (Come kapitan, we will go to Narsing)," Benedicto told the village chief.
This is the most common dilemma of people in the barangay.
Because vote-buying is now rampant even in the barangay level, it is easy to elect hoodlums and mentally deranged as officials.
If a punong barangay is not drug addict, he is a drug pusher. If he is not engaged in selling of drugs, he is engaged in illegal gambling and maintenance of prostitution dens--or in cahoots with operators of these illegal activities.
Or he is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
By Alex P. Vidal
THERE was no neuro test required when candidates for barangay elections filed their certificates of candidacy, so we can't expect that all winners in the October 28 elections are sane.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should be empowered to cancel or to declare as null and void the victory of any barangay official--chairman or councilman-- found to be unfit mentally or with serious case of neurosis.
So many cases of insanity involving barangay officials have been recorded in the past.
Instead of becoming an asset to the smallest political unit in the country, elected barangay officials with brain damage have become thorns and liabilities.
We remember one case in Iloilo City where a punong barangay or village chief missed a lot of opportunities to serve his constituents because he had to spend much of his time in the psychiatric ward of the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC) in the early 90s.
GATHERING
In one media gathering held at the RPTA Hall of the old Iloilo provincial capitol sometime in December 1992, a deranged village chief suddenly barged inside and threatened to throw a grenade to the crowd.
Broadcaster Sol Genson pacified the lunatic and convinced him to leave the premises.
He listened to Sol, his drinking buddy at Virgo night club.
Earlier when the late Pres. Cory Aquino appointed Rosa "Tita" Caram as OIC city mayor in April 1986, another lunatic village chief asked the first lady mayor in Iloilo City to extend the route of Dinagyang tribes to Port San Pedro "so that people of Guimaras and Negros can watch the event."
Caram dismissed his "crazy" idea.
A village chief in Jaro district always brought a monkey in the barangay hall because "the monkey had helped me a lot when I won in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire show."
He accused a barangay councilman of poisoning the monkey, who died under a mysterious circumstance.
The lunatic village chief wanted to bury the animal at Christ The King Cemetery using barangay funds.
"I oppose!" shouted the barangay councilman, the suspect in the monkey's death, who came to our office at Sun Star to report the "abuse of authority."
HELP
Former Iloilo Gov. Sim Grino had to ask the help of provincial tourism officer Manny Benedicto to escort a disoriented village chief from Dumangas back from capitol to the lunatic's municipality because he kept on addressing Gov. Grino as "Congressman Monfort" and refused to leave the governor's office.
"Indi ako si Narsing (4th district Rep. Narciso Monfort). Si Sim ako. Gob Sim Grino kapila ka na gid hambalan (I am Gov. Sim Grino and I have already told you this repeatedly)," an irate Grino ribbed the village chief.
"Lakat ta kap makadto ta kay Narsing (Come kapitan, we will go to Narsing)," Benedicto told the village chief.
This is the most common dilemma of people in the barangay.
Because vote-buying is now rampant even in the barangay level, it is easy to elect hoodlums and mentally deranged as officials.
If a punong barangay is not drug addict, he is a drug pusher. If he is not engaged in selling of drugs, he is engaged in illegal gambling and maintenance of prostitution dens--or in cahoots with operators of these illegal activities.
Or he is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)