UNIVERSITY of Cebu owner Augusto Go arrived late for the turnover of the P30 million donation of the GT/Metrobank Foundation to the Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum but he was among the last to leave. The museum is housed in the four-story Gotiaoco Bldg. and Gus held us captive with his story of how the edifice was built by his father in 1914.
Listening to Gus, I could imagine the Chinese workers from Xiamen in pigtails laying block by block the structure of what came to be the biggest building in Cebu when it was completed in 1918. The choice of Gotiaoco as the museum site is appropriate, given the building’s own history, and Gus gladly said yes when a group of younger Filipino Chinese businessmen led by Bob Gothong sought his permission to rehabilitate it.
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A thought came to mind after I watched the first in a series of televised town hall senatorial debates Sunday night. Shouldn’t we change the electoral system so that we can vote not only for but also against a candidate?
That way, the winners will be proclaimed on the basis of the net votes, the difference between the number of the “for” and the “against” votes of the candidates. The Social Weather Station and Pulse Asia do that in determining satisfaction ratings. Maybe it’s time we adopt that in choosing our officials.
The proposal is admittedly a little weird but weird was how I felt listening to some of the candidates trying to sell themselves to the public. Okay, make that one particularly obnoxious candidate whose name I will not mention because this space is reserved for the truly intelligent ones. I have long decided not to waste my vote on him but after the debate I wished I could do more, which was to vote against him. That would be very satisfying.
It will not happen, of course. So let me just mention my favorites instead, three lawyers who I believe would bring prestige to the Senate and sanity to its proceedings. Neric Colmenares, Chel Diokno and Florin Hilbay are not doing well in the surveys but I hope it would change as soon as the voters get to know them better.
Diokno and Hilbay were in the debate, with the former delivering what could probably be the most memorable line in all the senatorial debates. Answering a question on who between President Duterte and Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo he would give the last life jacket in a sinking ship, he said he would rather keep it to himself. The statement will certainly not endear Chel to Duterte’s and Arroyo’s supporters but it at least elicited laughter from the crowd.
Colmenares was not in Sunday’s debate. He told me when I bumped into him at the Fuente Osmena yesterday morning that his schedule is this Sunday. I do not agree with a number of Neric’s advocacies but I believe he will be a very good senator. He has been a thorn in the side of all the past and the present administrations. His maverick bent is an asset because with him we are assured that there is at least one member of the Senate who will not be anyone’s lapdog.