Monday, June 04, 2007 Speak out: A big step to get rid of the incumbent By Atty. Rosendo T. Brillantes Talamban, Cebu City
“A VOTE for the genuine opposition is a vote against the incumbent.” How true indeed. This approach attributed to Serge Osmeña III’s campaign manager for the GO senatorials worked well to millions of voters.
For the 35 million, employed, self-employed, the small entrepreneurs, moderately educated as they are, the slogan has good impact. It can safely be assumed that 18 million in that economic and social class at certain times, at certain places got exposed to the relentless tirades by the likes of Cayetano, Escudero, Zamora, Jinggoy, as well as the numerous commentators in the past 24 months against the incumbent.
At the same time the names of the anti-incumbent politicians got so popular to the millions via the high-tech information system. For this reason and for their inflammatory discourses I beg to disagree to the claims of many that the national election results “proved the maturing of the Filipino voters.” (Are they saying voters for Cory Aquino in 1985 towards the time of General Ramos, celebrity Joseph Estrada, economist Gloria Arroyo, were immature voters?)
This leads us to the inquiry why the majority of the employed, the self-employed, “the mama and papa” entrepreneurs numbering in the millions clearly rejected the many showcases of the government. They were shown housing projects, jobs created (800,000 new jobs in 2006), livelihood programs, extensive transport systems, elaborate highways, concrete bridges, micro-financing, strongest peso the past six years, among others.
Why were they not enticed by the strength of the government performance?
That is not difficult to evaluate.
The millions of the employed, self-employed, the lowly entrepreneurs cannot give great importance to the incumbent’s accomplishments. They have houses; they have spending money; their children are in school; they are comfortable eating out in fast food chains; they drive motor vehicles; majority reside in gate, guarded villages; they own top of the line appliances and electronic gadgets.
On the adverse side, they complain of not having substantial increases in their incomes, for others no salary raises the past years. To these millions their voting conscience lies in their possessions and for more possession yet to come.
To assuage their private disenchantments, they find comfort in the rebukes, in the agitations being heaped upon the incumbent by the GO components of the political groupings. That’s a strong message for the incumbent to get out of the way.
