I’m not eligible to vote this coming election day, since I didn’t register. It’s just as well, because it allows me the capacity to see the events leading up to the May 2016 elections with a more objective eye; I don’t have anything at stake, and I don’t really care about who wins, so long as they don’t terribly screw up our country.
But seeing as to how we’re three days from the elections, I’d like to throw an impassioned view of things into the overfilled hat of anger, hate, and disillusion that’s pretty palpable throughout social media. There are five presidential candidates, five vice presidential candidates, and two nuisance candidates (Trillanes, I’m looking at you), so I’m going to be filling up the next five days with my opinion of who’s running, and why.
And now, we come to the two ladies in the presidential race. I’m going to start with the one who’s been around for a much longer time, and discuss the honorable Miriam Defensor-Santiago in today’s post. For the duration of this post, I will be referring to her as MDS for brevity.
MDS is, perhaps, my choice for the presidency. If I were registered, and if I were voting, I would most definitely vote for her, because the lady is legendary in so many ways. She’s an absolute vanguard of discipline and due process in the government, as proven by her many displays of public tirade in the senate. She has the necessary experience and credentials for running the top post in the country. And she is, above all, a champion of good governance and an enemy of corruption.
She also has quite the sense of humor. She doesn’t shy away from taking pot shots at her own expense—her recent pop-lit books are a good indication of that. And whether you like her or not, you have to admit that whenever MDS blows a gasket over something in the senate in recent history, she was at the very least entertaining, among other things.
However, MDS is a wild card for two reasons. The first is that she chose to run with possibly one of the most morally questionable individuals in the history of Philippine politics. I call Bong Bong Marcos the Mad Hatter thanks to this pic popularized by Joe Am. But that aside, Marcos’ family is plagued with a long, long history of plunder, theft, and corruption, and the man is either blissfully unaware of just how deep his parents dug into the country’s coffers during their incumbency, or he’s a fan of historical revisionism.
But the point here is that MDS allying herself with BBM is such a questionable move that I couldn’t believe it at first when I found out about it. I won’t say that it affected my admiration for the good lady senator, but I think it’s fair to say that her decision to run with BBM did more for the latter’s ratings than for her own.
And then there’s the issue of her sickness. I’m not saying that an infirm individual can’t properly run a country—people have correctly pointed out time and time again in social media that some of the best leaders in history weren’t exactly the healthiest of people. But the bottom line is that I don’t want MDS to suffer even more than she already has. If there’s anything we’ve proven, running a country in this day and age will take a great toll on your health—look at how gaunt Barack Obama looks like now, and check out how much hair Noynoy Aquino lost during his incumbency. If MDS wins the presidency, you can just imagine how badly it’s going to affect her health.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think she’s the best candidate for the job. I just don’t think that she’s going to survive the job.
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