No more senators
My wife asked me why Manny Pacquiao has to run for the Senate. I stopped myself from telling her that it was the right of anyone not otherwise disqualified by law to run for public office. I knew she was very well aware of that, just as I was very well aware of what she was really driving at. So, to cut through the chase, I just told her that this country has long stopped electing senators. What we are doing is simply elect 12 people to the Senate every election.
In fact, and even more importantly, we have stopped electing presidents, or vice presidents, for that matter. What we are doing is simply elect people who will occupy the Office of the President, or the Office of the Vice President. It is, however, easier to live with this perversion in the lower positions because they do not affect national life as much as the presidency, the vice presidency, and the Senate do.
There was a time when Filipinos elected presidents based on their capacity to lead, and to lead by example. So with vice presidents, because electing a vice president is really the same as electing a president. At any given time a vice president can suddenly become the president, making it, therefore, an obligation we just cannot leave to frivolity and chance.
On the other hand, the Senate, aside from being the training ground for future presidents, demands that it be people by men and women of probity, men and women who know not only their law but also their international obligations, given the foreign policies that flavor their immense responsibilities. They must be men and women of stature, who are able to carry the national dignity on their persons, whatever actions they may take, official or unofficial.
Everything else below these top three levels of elective positions are deemed local, not in the sense that they are inferior, but because personal choices like voting for a classmate or for someone with a pretty face will not make us lose sleep over whether or not we will still have anything left of the Spratlys when we wake up in the morning.
As I was writing this, the nation was mourning the passing away of Joker Arroyo, one of the last of his breed who still made Filipinos truly proud of their Senate. Joker was one of the last of the true senators. Many of those we have been electing to the Senate -- except for a very distinct few -- are jokes. The fact of their election makes them members of the Senate. But it is difficult to call them real senators.
The joke gets even funnier, if only it was not upon us, as we go the two steps up the leadership ladder. Look at the presidency. Review the names of those we have elected to the highest position in the land, especially in more contemporary times. No self-respecting nation would have done what we have. We have made choices that were not anchored on the conviction that we were choosing the best but who was the most popular and likeliest to win. The same goes for the vice presidency.
It is a very sad and telling commentary of our times that for the 2016 elections we are seeing, or have seen, presidential wannabes having a hard time looking for runningmates, or for vice presidential hopefuls to find a standard-bearer. And that is because those who are truly gifted and qualified do not want to touch our brand of politics with a ten-foot pole. What we are left with is a talent pool that is all pool but not talent.
And that is why I am telling my wife to let Pacquiao be. Such is what this country has become. And what this country has become is why I got so disappointed in Leni Robredo, who allowed herself to be used by Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas for their own interests. Oh Leni, how could you forget that before you, this damned duo had tried to move heaven and earth to snag Grace Poe. When that failed, they went for Vilma Santos, remember? It was never you, Leni. It has always been all about them.
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