Lawyer Josephus Jimenez, a fellow columnist in this paper, wrote a terrific piece last Monday dissecting how Gwen Garcia overwhelmingly won over Agnes Magpale in all of Cebu's seven districts to reclaim the Capitol. Attorney Jimenez cited Gwen's superior strategy, bigger finances, and stronger character as reasons for her incredible feat.
With Attorney Jimenez's kind indulgence, I would like to add one more: Gwen's victory was a manifestation of the Cebuanos' sense of justice and fair play, a vindication from the trumped-up charges whipped up by her enemies to shove her aside when they could not do so in a clean and fair election.
The vindication of Gwen follows the same narrative that befell the self-righteous Otso Diretso that got shut out of the Senate. It was part of the sweeping tide of voter rejection of anything and everything hypocritical. There are no angels in politics, not even Gwen.
But at least Gwen does not pretend to be one. And to her credit, she works as much as she bitches, perhaps even more. If there is one thing that best characterizes her previous stint at the Capitol, it is that it was all work, work, work. Perhaps it was this that voters also remembered when they went to the polls, as opposed to the lethargy that marked her successor.
Yet more than the differentiation between administrations, I think the greatest bane of those who lost overwhelmingly in the last election was their characterization of themselves as the only ones who are morally right and just, that everyone else is incapable of even the slightest redeeming quality or virtue.
Nothing can be more insulting both to the intelligence of the voter and his own sense of right and wrong than such an arrogant and unqualified assertion, especially when the profession of contention is politics. How can anyone proclaim virtue from the pulpit of politics? To do so is to be morally dishonest and deserves nothing less than rejection.
And that is precisely what happened. It is why people like Gwen succeed, unless they are unjustly removed. Because instead of blowing their horns about how angelic and virtuous they are, they just bury their heads in work. "Buhat ang pasulti-on, dili sulti ang pabuhaton." At no time has this old slogan of Gwen been more relevant and appropriate than now.
In the bigger national picture, this is also part of the reason why people like Lito Lapid, Imee Marcos, and Bong Revilla won. There is a new tide of rejection of hypocrisy sweeping the nation. This is the tide that swept away to oblivion people like Chel Diokno and Florin Hilbay. If they are the angels they claim to be, what the hell are they doing joining politics? What hypocrisy!