Let's return to a two-party political system

Indeed the political kettle is starting to heat up. Already former Sen. Francisco "Kit" Tatad has bolted the United Opposition ticket on moral issues. But since the administration's Senatorial ticket will still be announced next week, let's focus a bit on American politics, which is just starting to boil, although the Presidential elections would still be in November of 2008.

This early, former First Lady now Senator Hillary Clinton a Democrat from New York has thrown her gauntlet into the political arena. Call it testing the waters or as others would say, they are creating a "Presidential Exploratory Committee" where potential candidates are using the Internet to ask voters if they would vote them as the next President of the United States.

America uses a two-party system but this doesn't mean that Sen. Hillary Clinton is already the official Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. She's up with other Democrats who also threw their gauntlet into the political ring, like Sen. Barrack Obama and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. On the Republican side, the front-runner is Sen. John McCain and Rep. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

Philippine politics was at its greatest when we had a two-party system, where the Nacionalista Party was on one side and the Liberal Party on the other side of the political coin. Back then anyone who thought he was smart to become President would challenge any contender within his political party. That means winning all the debates. If he won that, then he became the standard bearer of the party.

How things have changed with our present multi-party system, which has turned things from bad to worse. In the old days, a popular action star like Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) would never dare run for any elective position unless he could outdebate any challenger. With our current system FPJ just went ahead and ran for President even if he didn't know how to debate, much less make a political speech before a huge crowd.

During the heyday of our having a two-party system, we heard a lot of eloquent speeches made by statesmen, which is why before Martial Law threw out our democratic processes we had a lot of great Filipino statesmen. Today's stupidity called the Multi-Party system, we've only introduced personality politics where popular movie stars vie for Senate seats because they can sing and dance and wow a star-struck crowd.

Who really cares to listen to earth-shaking speeches that would help mold this country into a better nation when the ignorant masses merely want to see a live tv show for free? This is why it is imperative that we Filipinos fight for Charter Change and return to the tried and tested two-party system where actors take a back seat to real politicians.

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Yesterday morning was a proud day for Cebu when we witnessed the "Load-out" ceremony, that's the moving and the loading of those huge deep bed thickeners, which were assembled by Metaphil (an Aboitiz Company) in the Port of Cebu. Anyone who has gone to SM City must have seen those huge metal structures, which Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña during his short speech gamely dubbed, "an inverted giant cupcake maker".

Why in heavens are we giving so much importance to this event where a steel structure is loaded into a vessel? That's because it was the first time ever that this event happened in Cebu City. Each Thickener weights some 250 tons and is 20 meters in diameter. I have seen such huge structures at the Tsuneishi Heavy Industries in Balamban, but I didn't expect this to be done here in Cebu City.

Another Aboitiz owned company, Aboitiz Projects T.S. Corporation under its CEO Stefan Schmitz supervised the loading of each giant Thickener into a specialized Heavy Lift trailer, which then moved the entire structure some 300 meters into the port beside the specialize cargo vessel named "Happy Buccaneer". Loading the Thickener into the vessel was another delicate operation and of course unloading it in New Caledonia.

Metaphil under the leadership of its President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Roberto "Bobby" Aboitiz has put Cebu on the global map as one of the Filipino companies that can be a world-class supplier of high technology equipment, especially in the mining or oil industry. That's exactly what Mr. William Meyer representative of CVRD Inco Limited that owns the second largest Nickel mine in the world, that bought the Thickeners about the quality of Metaphil and the Cebuano workforce. Now that's really something to brag and be proud about!

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit's columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com