Thursday, October 09, 2008 Speak out: Political gimmicks By Julian Reyes Cebu City
THERE are many political gimmicks being practiced in the country. Examples are electoral campaigns in the form of info ads that delve not on passed bills or laws but on the personalities behind them.
Worse is when the info ad leads the audience to believe they are indebted to trapos who are merely doing the jobs required of them.
These publicity stunts include head-turning privilege speeches of legislators that often evolve into sour-graping or blackmailing exposes. As the issues drag, the press becomes a tool to brand the trapos’ names and faces across the country.
Aside from TV ads and sign boards, people hooked to cyber forums also stumble upon independent survey channels engaged in molding the thinking of the electorate.
These interactive poll sites allegedly want to teach the masses the virtues of responsible voting for 2010. What seems fishy is that trapos are running these forums.
Meanwhile, presidential wannabes are already pretending to be “concerned” with the country and the welfare of the people by grandstanding over controversial issues, particularly on scandals involving their would-be opponents in 2010.
On the other hand, we should not only focus on presidential aspirants but also give ample attention to senatoriables, congressional wannabes, even party-list groups.
Many Filipinos still regard the party-list elections as nuisance and vote for a party- list group without any second thoughts or consideration.
But a party list representative is accorded the same amount of Priority Development Assistance Fund or “pork barrel” as a solon from a congressional district. This translates into millions of pesos.
In my search for would-be party list groups, for example, I stumbled on a group called the International Center for Innovation, Transformation and Excellence in Governance (INCITEGov).
An interview with an INCITEGov member revealed that, aside from having personalities like the Hyatt 10, the group also has undersecretaries and a former representative of Akbayan.
The group has just recently showed its true color by signing, together with other civil society groups, a statement against the term extension of PGMA.
Knowing that the personalities behind INCITEGov are sour-graping former cabinet secretaries and anti-government parties, people should doubt its agenda.
