Campaigns lack substantive debate

William Esposo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

Most anybody who understands the extreme socio-economic and political fix we're in will agree that the coming elections in May present itself as the only remaining democratic option for deliverance.

But from all indications, I'm afraid that the May elections will ignite, rather than de-fuse that social time bomb that at the moment ticks ever so irreverently toward the appointed hour.

As a mechanism of democracy, elections normally provide the avenue for change as voters take stock of the problems at hand and select from the menu of platforms and promises proffered by candidates.

Indeed, the rule of the majority, or plurality, in the case of multi-party systems, is the most rational and civilized way of effecting change. But at the level this election campaign is being waged, the emerging presidential vote does seem to conjure the ascendancy of a wrong president for all the wrong reasons.

Just look at the level of discourse (or the lack of it!) being dished out. Fernando Poe, Jr. (FPJ) continues to lead in surveys despite the fact that he has not yet produced even a semblance of a plan or program of government in the event he becomes president.

Viewing his one-on-one interview on Max Soliven's new TV program on ANC, Impact, I could not bear watching longer than three minutes. By God! The man who would be president does not know anything and was not saying anything!

What shocks a media professional like me is how our media can allow FPJ to get away with bloody murder. Now well into four weeks of the campaign and his platform of government is still silent movies. Worse, the most irrelevant and inane aspects of the FPJ campaign get front page banner headline treatment from "tabloids" masquerading as decent broadsheets. Frankly, the FPJ I see on the campaign trail and lately the one I saw in the program Impact is hardly someone who I can trust to comprehend the most simple, most basic principles of good government, much less take the helms of leadership.

Responsible media in more mature democracies would have challenged FPJ without let-up for him to present his presidential thesis as the major, and in fact, the only justification for coverage.

Considering the enormity and extreme seriousness of the issues crying out to the addressed, it goes without saying that media, as an instrument of public trust, are obliged to take the lead in demanding that candidates lay bare their political and government agendas. Garbage in and garbage out is not exactly our idea of responsible Fourth Estate. Living out our present nightmares may even turn out to be a lighter sentence than waking to an election aftermath with the sobering realization that people voted for the wrong persons and for the wrong reasons.

The nature of popular support behind FPJ and Macapagal-Arroyo depicts a gathering of the disillusioned and the desperate. In the case of FPJ, the screen superhero presented itself as the problem solver of the masses' super-problems. And why not? Based on the logic of the teeming millions of street smart but politically untutored electorate, the best and brightest of public officials had all but taken them into deeper squalor.

On the other hand, it is so commonly known that Macapagal- Arroyo's administration is so besieged with clamor for change that when recent surveys reflected unusual gains in ratings, we can draw only one conclusion: She reaped points by default as a result of the foreboding evoked by an FPJ presidency. A considerable sector counts the over 62 percent who did not vote for Joseph Estrada in 1998 and who are now even more paranoid about showbiztocracy.

In other words, whether it is FPJ or Macapagal-Arroyo who gets elected for the 2004-2010 term, they will have been elected for reasons other than the normal expectations of good governance and improved living standards.

For all her much touted experience and exposure, incumbent Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has not raised the level of discourse either. Instead, she chose to pander to the siren song of showbiz, loading her national ticket with silver screen personalities -- starting with her vice presidential running mate all the way to her senate slate.

Tragic, because it projects an embattled president bereft of the core support of the EDSA II forces which installed her. We see a Macapagal-Arroyo, with her pedigree, education, experience and all -- now clutching at straws and assembling a motley of showbiz characters to try to fortify her crumbling candidacy.

The fact that she will only acquiesce to a debate if it is on a one-on-one with FPJ clearly shows her vulnerabilities. She knows engaging a high school dropout in a debate will be like stealing candy from a baby. But this is not necessarily the case if she was pitted against the likes of Raul Roco, Ping Lacson and Bro. Eddie Villanueva, all of whom have a real platform of government. Anybody, including Eddie Gil, will look good and more presidential debating with FPJ.

Macapagal-Arroyo cannot evade the fact that in this democratic exercise, she has to present the thesis to which Messrs. Roco, Lacson and Villanueva will present their respective anti-thesis. The incumbent provides the thesis for governance, the challengers the anti-thesis, and the people benefit with the synthesis. More than what Jose Pidal may have carted away, this act of depriving the nation of the benefit of the proper electoral forum is an even bigger failing to which Macapagal-Arroyo is accountable to the Filipino people.

For all our sakes and for the sake of the next generation, we must achieve a genuine national consensus that would unite the country under a national agenda in the next six years of the new presidential term. Our very lives and national sanity are teetering on the edge and I doubt if the people will still take another six years of the drift that had plagued us since 1998.

But only the kind of discourse that educates, informs and provokes critical decision-making for voters on the real issues will enable us to benefit appropriately from this democratic exercise called elections. Only an enlightened and well-informed electorate can become agents for positive change.

Otherwise, let's call the May elections a countdown to doom.