Epal time!

Today marks the beginning of the filing of candidacy for those who plan to seek public office come 2013. You will notice the candidates who are definite of the parties they belong to and those who are not. Many will cast their candidacy at the last hour. These are the seguristas, those who just want to make sure they placed themselves in the best strategic positions. Don’t be surprised to see some “jumpers” – surely there will be a lot of them.

We haven’t truly matured in this sense at all! Politics in the Philippines is really such a hayride just in time for Halloween, with all the scary goblins, pumpkins, scarecrows and witches in broomsticks flying all over the place.

Last week we saw the birth of a new political party, the National Unity Party. Political parties in this country just keep on sprouting left and right. Instead of working towards unification, these politicians hop to another party or a coalition of political parties. By doing so, they think they can have better chances of winning with more efficient campaign mechanisms plus a bigger budget. These political turncoats have dominated our country’s political system for decades. We definitely have not learned our lessons from the past. The multitude of political parties that keep coming out every election time has done more harm than good to the country. They have caused nothing but chaos in the political system.

The term “political party” means that members are composed of men and women banded together in a common cause, with a common agenda, a common statement of principles, and a common goal. If this is the gauge, then no existing political party or coalition of so-called political parties fits the bill today. The only thing common to our present “parties” is that they are vehicles of convenience for people seeking election or re-election. Look at the composition of these parties. Wannabes are usually clustered under the tutelage of a leader whose charisma and clout, they hope, will bring them to glory and public office. This is why we do not have platforms, but launching pads for a profitable career in politics. Susmariosep!

I remember how my late father described it best: “There is only one party in the Philippines which is reliable, unchanging and faithful to reality. This is the Birthday Party!

*      *      *

Now that the political fever all over the country has begun, its Epal time! A few weeks ago Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes joined the anti-Epal movement to dissuade politicians from early campaign. But this drive although quite strong is still not a deterrent to our seasoned politicos with no shame. Early campaigning has already been undertaken by some candidates. Just look around in print ads, billboards, TV commercials, TV and radio programs, TV guestings, etc. – all in the guise of public service.

These epaliticians know that during election time in our country, visibility is the game. Yes, in fact, visibility is even better and can win more points than being honorable. The COMELEC should better define and make clear what constitutes electioneering. Otherwise, all discussions and protests against premature campaigning will be in vain.

The question now is not on the legality of premature campaigning but on its ethical implications. COMELEC says that the campaign period for the May 2013 elections begins on February 12, 2013. But look around you. Obviously, this is not the case.

*      *      *

Last week, I wrote about the 365 Club and mentioned that Doroy Valencia died in 1976. I stand corrected. No offense meant on the man considered to be the father and pillar of Philippine journalism and the man behind the improvement of Fort Santiago and Rizal Park. Ka Doroy was the dean of the 365 Club. He died of lung cancer on May 4, 1987. He was 74.

Teodoro Valencia was born in Tanauan, Batangas, the hometown of Mabini and the Laurels. He was born in a wealthy home and when his parents died he decided not to get his inheritance. Instead as a poor boy by choice, he sold ice cream, ran errands, worked in a grocery store and even worked as high school janitor.

He graduated valedictorian from high school. He obtained degrees in journalism and education in the University of Santo Tomas while serving as news-editor of the campus newspaper, the Varsitarian. He eventually became the newspaper editor. He took evening classes in the Philippine Law School and became a lawyer.

After World War II, he worked as a newspaperman in the Daily Standard, then moved to Daily News, the Nacionalista Party newspaper. Doroy Valencia believed that “to be a good newspaperman, one should be a fiscalizer, not a bootlicker, not a propaganda or information sheet for the administration.”

He wrote two daily columns, one in English for the Manila Times (Over a Cup of Coffee), and one in Tagalog for Taliba (Sa Harap ng Salamin); one weekly column in Bulaklak; two weekly articles for Bulaklak and Tagumpay; and occasionally an article for a weekly in English. He had three radio shows – two daily programs which, like his columns, were a sprinkling of news and comments, and an educational program for children. He went on TV every Sunday (Coffee with Valencia) doing commentaries on the latest news and political issues.

Quijano de Manila once said of Ka Doroy, “His column sounds like a very alive man talking. There’s the breathlessness, the incoherence, the jumping from subject to subject, of the compulsive talker…each sentence is a fresh paragraph.”

*      *      *

In my dad’s biography, Maximo V. Soliven – The Man and the Journalist, it was mentioned that before and after Martial Law, the hangout of top journalists was the Café Conquilla at the Manila Hilton.

By the late 1970s, the Hilton crowd, previously entrenched at nearby Taza de Oro and Country Bakeshop in Ermita, moved to the Makati Intercon’s Jeepney Bar, otherwise known as Doroy Valencia’s 365 Club.

In 1983, my dad had written a piece about the 365 Club in Manila Magazine entitled: Is it Power or just the Delusion of Power? He said, like Vienna, Manila has a long tradition of coffee shoptalk. Instead of backroom deals in smoke-filled caucus rooms, deals are made, plots are hatched, and backs are stabbed in glassed-in front rooms over endless cups of coffee.