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Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Gulle: At face value
By Inocentes A. Gulle
Your business is our business
AT THIS point no one can be sure who among the presidential aspirants is the winner. We have only the surveys to rely on, to gauge the chances of any one of them making it. The best the surveys can show is each respondent's appraisal of each of the candidates, at their face value. For who can tell what is deep in the heart of each of them?
Appraisers usually reckon with face value, fair market value, and book value, in order to come up with the arbitrary valuation, called appraised value. There are also other factors that should be considered if one has to determine the marketability of a certain commodity. More important ones are, peace and order conditions prevailing in the area, customs and traditions of the population, and regional climatic and geographical characteristics.
Choosing a leader, I suppose, should similarly require looking into possible intervening factors that could influence the prospective leader's decision-making ability, aside from personality traits, leadership capability, moral fiber, physical and mental well-being, training and fortitude. These intervening factors could be the people surrounding him/her, how much these factors could influence him.
Appraising the presidential wannabes, we most likely would look at their face value. Meaning their generally known reputation, and qualities, plus the selling points they and their supporters eloquently proclaim. We do not know, nor do we have any means of knowing, what their secret agenda really are. We mostly rely on native intuition, the rest, bahala na (charge to fate).
Of Ms. Arroyo, basing on her performance and her style of leadership, we already know, more or less, what to expect. It's up to us now to say whether she passed or failed. The same is true with Mr. Roco. He has been a Senator, a cabinet minister and a known practicing politician. Both are civilians and, save for a few adherents identified with the military, are backed by civilian supporters.
Mr. Lacson, except that he has some axes to grind, in terms of unresolved imponderables that characterized his tenure in office, as national police chief, as provincial police commander, and as a common soldier, may be categorized with Mr. Roco and GMA. He is said to have some military backing too.
Mr. Poe is a different commodity altogether. At face value, he would just be a knight in shining armor and that's all. No one knows his real personality, character, and traits, except maybe those thespians who root for him, who have had quite a long time association with him in their own make-believe world of pretend and sexual decadence. It is even doubtful whether Messrs. Angara, Enrile, Tatad, Ocampo and the NPAs, Ms. Legarda and the rest of the idol-worshiping, unthinking multitude out there, know how he would perform as a president.
It is thus a reasonable speculation that he would rely heavily on his bevy of advisers since he knows next to nothing about politics and how to run a country, not even a barangay (He is not even sure of his real circumstances of his birth). So we may expect that Sotto, Angara, Enrile, Tatad, Legarda, and Honasan, would take to the in field, the has-been and would-be Generals, the outfield. And then they will play their own brand of ballgame, with FPJ as a stooge of a manager sitting nonchalant in the dugout. Of all things, he might even ask Ocampo to prepare the batting order, God forbid.
Now what about Bro. Eddie Villanueva? At face value, he would be the most appetizing dish on the counter, so to speak. He is supposed to be a born-again Christian and therefore, morally upright and obviously, a good shepherd. That he is well educated, knows the world at large, and has been able to convert thousands (some say millions) to his brand of Christianity, should make him the best choice for a leader of country, steeped in greed, sexual immorality, and hopeless destitution.
However, he was once, by his own admission, a Marxist-Leninist adherent, an ideology directly opposite of what he is now preaching. As a communist, he should be well versed in dialectics. One, therefore, cannot but be put in a quandary as to what kind of a bird he really is. How far is he removed from the former, a godless religion, or is he? After all, communism and Christianity have similar vision of a peaceful, prosperous and a crimeless social order. The similarity, however, ends when we speak of the means in getting there.
About Eddie Gil, I must beg off. Who is he?
It's your ballgame my dear voters. Play it the to the bone, the best you know how, if you may.
As for me, I'll spend my sunset, which is not too long now. The best I can do is pray that this country may yet make a going concern, God willing.
(March 10, 2004 issue)
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