EDITORIAL - Billboards cannot substitute candidates

So, another giant yellow billboard has gone up screaming "Never Again" and then stops short of screaming who is the alternative to what we should never again ... what? Never again vote? If it is to never again vote for whom, then who should we vote for instead? The new billboard has risen in Talisay City, just after a similar one was taken down from the CICC in Mandaue City.

Mandaue City is adjacent to Cebu City to the north. Talisay City is adjacent to Cebu City to the south. Why are no similar billboards rising in Cebu City? Because, dear Cebuanos, the people in Cebu City are not voters in the province, unlike the people in Mandaue City and Talisay City who are. In other words, the Mandaue City billboard and the Talisay City billboard are early political gimmicks of you-know-who.

But of course, you-know-who is not admitting having a hand in the gimmick because doing so will not jibe with the "daang matuwid" charade which is supposed to be about good manners and right conduct. But it is one thing to mouth good manners and right conduct and another to actually live it. Unfortunately, the only time anyone has truly lived a life of good manners and right conduct was way back in grade school, in the years of anyone's innocence.

These days, be wary of big men selling good manners and right conduct because in all likelihood they will only sell you down the river. Remember those sidewalk magicians who must sell some mumbo jumbo medicine first before the magic? Well the CICC mess alluded to in the first "Never Again" happened years ago. So did the Balili property in the second "Never Again." But good manners and right conduct never occurred to you-know-who then. Why only now when you-know-what happens in May 2016.

In other words, the "Never Again" billboards are all a sham. What messages they try to impart are shallow and do not spring from some deep-rooted wellspring of true unassailable character and impregnable values. They are for purposes that are cheap, a gimmickry concocted by those who sorely lack the imagination to put their best foot forward for assessment by the public. The worst leaders are those who live off others instead of their own strengths and resources.

These little big men do not even have the guts to own up to their deeds, the way true alternatives would. Anyone who presents himself the better person is never afraid to come forward. Leadership is not about hiding behind the skirt of anonymity or taking refuge behind proxies. Leadership is about accountability. Isn't that what the "Never Again" billboards are ostensibly trying to say?

Well, the unfit leadership the billboards never want again has not hied off to China. They have been held to account and will be held to account. They have faced the music and will face the music in the proper venues designed for such matters. But the specters and shadowy creatures behind the billboards are not coming out as angels of the light would. Theirs is an alternative leadership the Cebuanos do not deserve, one that would slap them silly if they make that mistake.