Tuesday, May 08, 2007 Editorial: Culture of political insanity
ONLY one week remains before the nation's electorate vote for the candidates of their choice. As in a track race, it is the last lap to the finish line. And the winners, after all has been said and done, will have the last laugh.
With only a few more days left for last-minute campaigning, it is hoped that the violence which has characterized this election from day one shall have ceased --which is like asking for the moon. There never has been a Philippine election within memory which was not marked with bad blood between political rivals and the corresponding bloodshed. Never.
Foreign observers are appalled by the kind of bitterness that is a hallmark of Philippine politics, more so on the run-up to the polls. As election day approaches the campaign rhetoric comes to a crescendo, waxing hot to fever pitch. In the course of which, some candidates do not reach the finish line, having been eliminated not through the ballot but courtesy of a bullet or two.
Our countrymen who are distressed no end by this seasonal resort to the law of the jungle in the pursuit of political power -- by hook, or by crook -- are at a loss how to change this culture of impunity into one of sanity. Or is this country forever doomed to remain "as is, where is"?
And no sooner shall the May 14, 2007, elections have passed into history than here comes the positioning for the Presidential elections of 2010 where the stakes will be higher and the rivalry even more profound in the battle for Malacañang. Then we shall have more of the same scenario that has marked the struggle for leadership and power in this country since the time of Emilio Aguinaldo and Andres Bonifacio. Remember?
History tells us how that rivalry ended. In blood shed.
