MANILA
Vice President Jojo Binay and Sen. Grace Poe have been playing musical chairs at the top of the presidential surveys here. Former senator and interior secretary Mar Roxas and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte do the same for the Number 2 spot.
Miriam Santiago trails badly, with only a single-digit share of the poll numbers. She should seriously consider dropping out, if only for her health’s sake. But I think she’s too proud to give up.
The closeness of the surveys explains that the Filipinos are paying attention to and are engaged in the presidential campaign.
What is tickling the people’s interest? Some observers say it’s the “teleserye” lives of the contenders.
Immediately after Binay signified his intention to run for president in 2010, charges of corruption greeted him and have been raining on his parade since. He is accused of amassing whopping amounts of illegal money from when he was mayor of Makati City.
Poe has also been in the news every day because of her troubles with the Comelec, which has disqualified her from running over her questioned natural-born citizenship and failing to meet the requirement of 10 years residency in the Philippines. The Supreme Court is poised to rule on the upstart Poe’s DQ cases before the May 9 election.
Duterte has been Mr. Controversy himself, equally troublesome as Binay’s problems. Duterte swears as if curses were running out of style. Duterte must have stocked up on curse words when they went on sale. My question remains: What kind of person addresses Pope Francis thus: “Put..g ina ka Pope…”? (If you don’t understand the preceding quote, ask a Filipino relative or friend.)
And then there’s Roxas who can’t seem to extricate himself from the label of being a “teka, teka manager, meaning he is indecisive. People, or at least Roxas’ detractors, want a quick-action type of leader, not Roxas’ deliberative management style.
I will just say here that Santiago, as I see it, is past her prime. She has been seriously ill. She claims she’s cured of cancer. But she walks visibly slow. She has even lost her previously feisty nature. She tries to be her former self but even the casual observer can tell she’s not the same. She’s now just a shadow of her combative self.
According to some pundits, people are drawn to candidates who have “drama” in their real lives, like Poe, Binay and Duterte. They don’t like a plain-vanilla candidate like Roxas.
Of course, when a candidate is in the news practically every day, then she or he remains embedded in people’s minds. And so when the poll canvassers come around, the names of the more “dramatic” politicians jump out of people’s memories.
But are the “dramatic” personalities the right people for the presidency? Can they be effective leaders once they’re in Malacanang with the panic buttons in front of them in case of emergencies, contingencies and crises?
The closeness of the preference surveys and the absence of a clear leader with an overwhelming percentage of those surveyed convey the message that the people are divided. If the trend continues and the final winner only gets a plurality of the votes in May, that should be alarming because we will then get another minority president.
Having a minority president — one who doesn’t garner a vote of at least 50 percent plus one vote — is dangerous. That’s because having a minority president means that more people voted against him or her. That is not majority rule.
Even in boxing, the winner must get a majority decision of the judges. Unless he scores a TKO or a clear knockout. In politics, that means a landslide.