EDITORIAL - Same dog, different collar

It is difficult to believe Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas can truly bring about a new kind of politics based on principles and ethics, judging by the way they have been conducting their campaign.

If indeed they plan to bring the nation on the path to righteousness, they must exhibit the signs of reassurance now and not wait until they get into office, where political debts have a way of breaking promises. Unfortunately, no such signs seem to be forthcoming.

Instead we see familiar hypocrisies that have characterized the political conduct of this nation for so long. And if they seem unrecognizable at first, it is only because novel disguises available to politicians, including Noynoy and Mar, are simply inexhaustible.

Take the case of the tandem's supposed fund-raising campaigns. They are intended to paint an image of underdogs so poor they are unable to wage a credible campaign against the entrenched and powerful without having to beg for peso coins from the suffering masses.

But do you really believe a Cojuangco haciendero and a Roxas heir would really need to go down to that level? Why, long before the final configurations materialized, Roxas already hit the ground running with expensive ads promoting what eventually would be an aborted presidential bid.

Then there is their lugaw fund-raiser which really takes the cake. For P2,000 campaign contributors get to eat a bowl of lugaw, as if people who can afford to throw away two thousand pesos for lugaw would actually care to eat the lugaw. It is all just for television to show.

Just look at the clientele. You see none of the people who truly eat lugaw everyday. That is because the people who truly eat lugaw everyday cannot even afford to part with a peso for the piso-piso for Noynoy campaign. In other words this is all a sham, a deception.

Noynoy's so-called principled and ethical campaign is in fact deliberately exploiting the misery of people for his own gain by commiserating with them not with genuine acts of concern and sympathy but by mere symbolisms and going through the motions.

The pretense of being pro-poor is far worse than outright and open neglect for the poor. At least in the latter you do not give false hopes and raise expectations. But the former exploits and then betrays. Hypocrisy kills without killing and its victims die without dying.