ON MAY 9, assuming no last- minute quitter, there will be nine presidential aspirants some 65 million Filipino voters will choose from to lead this country in the next six years. It will probably be the toughest decision Filipinos will ever make. At stake is no less than the country’s future beset with tremendous challenges ranging from economic to health, freedom and foreign policy, and who knows what else is unseen around the bend.
In his book “The Choice”, award-winning journalist Bob Woodward wrote that presidential elections are defining moments that go way beyond legislative programs or the role of the government. In the country’s case, the Philippines could either go forward or slide backward for the preponderant choice people will make on Monday. “We are our choices,” the French nihilist Jean Paul Sartre said.
That’s why, Woodward said, anyone seeking the presidency is audacious. A candidate is declaring himself both fit and worthy, an act at once arrogant and selfless. By this easily verifiable standard, Filipino voters are sufficiently guided, or should be , about their choice, even if surveys seem to show otherwise. On the other hand, subsequent campaign rallies have provided a contrary perspective, and bolstered optimism for both politicians and supporters, a vital component of audacity,
Of the 65 million or voters, it is estimated that about 56 percent is made up of the youth, the so-called millennials and Gen Z. generation. In other words, how the Monday polls will turn out to be will depend much on who the young generation will shade their ballots on the ovals for presidential wannabes. Will it be a man or woman?
More than a century ago, our national hero Jose Rizal wrote a poem addressed to the Filipino youth while he was still a university student in Manila. It was titled “ A la juventud Filipina (To the Philippine Youth) in which he referred to them as the”bella esperanza de la patria mia” (beautiful hope of our motherland.
He was both poetic and prophetic in this sense, given how much role the Filipino young voters will truly play in the 2022 presidential polls. Rizal’s words have never been more relevant and compelling than in the present where Filipinos are faced with a crucial choice. The hero, however, was less specific.
Woodward provided at least three questions by which a voter can base his or her decision, namely: 1)Who are we? 2) What matters? 3) Where are we going? We should think we are Filipino first, according to Pampanga lawyer Atlee Viray in his weekly column, before we consider ourselves as a distinct ,discrete tribe. Nationalism should be decisive over regionalism, he said.
Much of the current political conversation on social media is a hodgepodge of lies and truth, disinformation and information. Social media have become a powerful and effective platform of confusion for a lot of people, especially when it comes to evaluating their choices based on Woodward’s three questions.
Even the cognoscenti admits what the problem is . A local professional businessman engaged in the newspaper trade for decades has admitted difficulty in determining truth or falsehood, fake news from real ones on social media. Technology and algorithm, he said, have only added to the confusion and in misleading social media users. The last three years of the pandemic, he said, has caused newspaper circulation to drop by 50 percent. Where the did newsreaders go instead? The social media, likened to a genie let out of the bottle, doing more harm than good.
Many voters, millions of them, will go the polls “educated, brainwashed, misled and misinformed” on social media, he said. From his vantage point, this situation is risky for the nation Rizal premised his high hope for the young Filipinos as the guardian of the country’s fate and future on their education. Monday polls will vindicate or eviscerate his heroic optimism..
“The social media has taken over to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back one week to their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years” the famous American director Steven Spielberg said. Apparently, sustained historical revisionism worldwide has found a convenient platform in social media. Millions have been sucked into the vortex of massive dis and misinformation. The Philippines is probably not alone.
The actor John Arcilla who played Gen Antonio Luna in a movie, has dumbed down the process of choosing the next president by simple comparison. It is a choice, he said, between a corrupt candidate and an honest one, a plunderer and a servant, a lazy leader and a hardworking one and absent or present when needed.
Obviously, Arcilla was endorsing Vice President Leni Robredo when he made his stirring speech during Robredo’s huge rally in Pasay City recently. In any case, he made his point in making a comparative test of presidential bets, which should not only be limited to Robredo and former Sen. Bongbong Marcos, but should include the other aspirants as well. As it is, or as the surveys and rallies show, it’s been narrowed down between Robredo or BBM. But audacity has rubbed on the others as well.
Woodward has provided a good clue to who should be the better, if not the best, choice. By the private and public actions of the candidates,you shall know them,” he said. Robredo has challenged BBM to a public debate to settle, once and for all, the issue as to who is more fit and worthy to lead the nation in the next six years. BBM has declined, as he had declined previous invitations to join past presidential debates. Exhibit A?
In the Old Testament, the Hebrews were presented a choice between a curse and a blessing. They were explicitly told to choose blessing and life. It’s a similar decision Filipino voters will collectively and individually make on Monday. If we fail, Arcilla warned,the nation will also fail. Really, there isn’t much difference between the old warning and the new caveat.
