Tuesday, November 04, 2008 Obenieta: Missing the mess By Myke U. Obenieta So to speak
JUST a sneeze away from the fourth of November when the US elects its 44th president and its pack of legislators, this kibitzer in the heartland of America has a confession to cough up: I’m itching for the sights and sounds of the razzmatazz called the Philippine elections.
Sure, Tina Fey and her cohorts at “Saturday Night Live” may be a hoot with their boot-on-the-butt impersonations. But there’s nothing like Pinoy fun that factors in real-life clowns who can kick the political ball out of the park as they play solemn in the face of their circus-worthy candidacies.
Because politicians everywhere are expected to channel their inner suicide bombers at their rivals, the terms of enmity appear to be ho-hum for any armchair interloper. Things being easier said than done, the spiels are sort of anti-climactic as the milkshake of rhetoric brims over. There will be bluff, anytime and anywhere.
Regarding the difference between Stateside and Pinoy campaign seasons, comparison may be odd. But it’s obviously inevitable considering how America’s little brown brothers (and sisters) have long been starry-eyed at Hollywood-fashioned freedom and democracy. Our political drama, after all, has rendered it easy for every American to dribble spit down their double chin a la Cherie Gil in “Bituing Walang Ningning” with her anti-amnesia quip: You’re nothing but a second-rate, trying-hard copycat!
But, boy, are we such originals in bringing our elections out of the realm of issues and into the zone of zap-happy stuff. “Ibang leybel na to!” as Rufa Mae Quinto would say. Considering the chill of economic despair, American voters confronted by the advertising combat of politicians so sober in their television spots could have lapped up the Pinoy mini-talent show disguised as campaign ads with jingles galore.
Another bland detail about their electoral duel: American elections are so antiseptic about their public walls, fences, and trees. Not for them is the Pollock-styled mosaic of garbage in the guise of election posters and streamers. Out here, the sizes and minimalist graphic styles of their campaign materials are as spectacular as “Keep off the grass” signs on well-mown lawns.
Despite the sewage from my sinus getting worse along with the wintry air now ruffling the tail end of autumn, being nosy about American political affairs is simply my way of sniffing for telltale signs of the political heat back home, no matter if horribly heartwarming.
Whether we talk of hope or its opposite, even patriots as fierce as pitbulls would agree with the most tractable of colonized cows: Americans’ decision in this election will always hit home.
Never mind of three out of four Filipinos say it does not matter to them who wins the US presidential election, as revealed by a recent survey of the Social Weather Stations. The way Americans vote would “affect the rest of us when it comes to foreign policy, the environment, the global market, you name it,” states the Canada-based Iranian journalist Amira Al Hussaini who edits Voices Without Votes, an online umbrella of bloggers all over the world who think the US elections will impact, for better or worse, the lives of millions of others from other countries. Now, copycat or not, that’s one truth I can’t sneeze at.
