Saturday, March 03, 2007 Carvajal: Debate: pure gimmick By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
GO, as claimed, stands for Genuine Opposition. But genuine or not, its fundamental problem is precisely that it is nothing more than just that, an opposition. While we can walk a long ways with them in its criticism of the Arroyo administration, we are completely in the dark as to how it will do it differently in order to change things around.
That makes its proposed debate smack of a pure and unadulterated campaign gimmick. According to its spokesman Adel Tamano (who he?), it wants a debate “before the Filipino people, so that they can see first-hand if the so-called economic gains under the Arroyo administration are truly reaching the majority of Filipinos.”
But we all know this already. Why debate something that everybody knows to be true? In fact, poor Filipinos know it from experience much better than any of the GO candidates who live in luxury thanks to their being the direct beneficiaries of the same trickle effect economic program they implemented when they were in control of government under Erap.
The Philippines has never had a populist government. The economic elite has always ruled us and naturally worked only for its interests. I believe that is what they mean when they say, “What are we in power for?” Therefore, all administrations, past and present, have always implemented an economic program that directly benefited the upper classes and left the poor to wait for the trickle effect to reach them.
GO, therefore, does not need to tell us through a debate that the so-called gains of this adminis-tration’s economic program have not reached the majority of Filipinos. GO needs to tell us instead in what way its economic program will be better, that is of course if it has an alternative economic program. What economic program will it implement the benefits of which will reach the majority of Filipinos faster than a trickle?
To debate is to evade the question: “If PGMA’s program, as you rightly claim, is not benefiting the majority of Filipinos, what does GO intend to do about it?” GO bets evade the issue because they themselves do not know any other approach to the economy. When Loren Legarda was asked how was Erap’s economic program better before, she could only hedge with the lamest of replies that we should not compare administrations but compare ourselves with our neighbors in Asia instead.
GO does not have a different approach. It wants a debate because it just wants this administration voted out of office so it can implement its version of the trickle effect approach. The problem is the last time it was in power the nation got shortchanged with less than a trickle.
