POLL watchdogs have this advice to voters: Treat election candidates as job applicants and make them go through stringent screening.
It is graduation season and the next challenge facing young adults is in how to look for a job. These young adults are among the young voters who will be counted on to cast their votes this May 10. They know or will soon know how it is to apply for a position.
There is a process to getting a job. You send in an application for a vacant position, show up for the interview and submit clearances. The interviews can be done more than once if the applicant has been put in the short list. The clearances can run the gamut of documents coming from the police, the National Bureau of Investigation, the medical clinic and, in some cases, from a psychiatrist.
One document going around E-mail groups is a supposed psychiatric evaluation form made on leading presidential candidate Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, done in 1996, and reporting on his “depressed state.” The camp of Aquino has denied such a report existed and has blamed the fabrication on a political opponent.
But the incident gave rise to suggestions that candidates, at least the three leading bets for president and vice president, be required to undergo psychiatric examination to see if they are fit to serve the country. Others suggested police and medical clearances and a surprise drug test.
Election candidates cannot be compelled to take those tests because the Constitution itself requires only minimum qualifications of those wishing to serve the public.
The Constitution states in Article 7, Section 2, “No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least 40 years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years immediately preceding such election.” The same qualifications apply to the vice president.
While all those tests cannot be made requirements, there are forums between candidates and the electorate that can take the place of a panel interview in a job screening. These encounters may be informal in nature, in a town hall set-up or in cyberspace through an online chat.
Candidates have less than a month to go around the country to convince voters they are the most qualified among the applicants for public office.
Voters still have the chance to make encounters with candidates as stringent as in a job interview by asking these questions.
Show me your curriculum vitae. What got you into politics? What drives you or motivates you? What are your core values and commitments? What books do you read?
What is your knowledge of the responsibilities of the position?
What skills do you possess that make you the best person for the job? What original idea can you bring into the office? Who are your financial backers? What would be the tradeoff? Who would you take in as consultants? There are many more questions voters can ask of the candidates.
Voters pay the salaries of those who will assume public office after the elections; voters have the right to screen candidates as they would job applicants.
(ninicab@sunstar.com.ph)