THE shoe of the President is a measure to the competency of a candidate who wants to have the executive power as provided in the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.
Any candidate for president will be gauged by the Filipinos based on his platform, a political party, or the candidate’s written statement of principles and plans.
A platform, according to my teacher in Political Science, is usually developed by a committee at the party convention during a presidential campaign. (In our kind of politics today, I doubt if we still follow this.)
I know that our candidates during political rallies are made to show their talents as comedians, singers, dancers, or magicians. Sometimes they also answer pressing questions that have been given ahead to them.
In the past, the “miting de avance” was the time to hear exploding issues and counter-issues from the presidential candidates. Today, the climax of the event is a series of songs from movie love teams.
We should know that candidates win not just because they are popular or intelligent. They win because they are backed up to the brim by the “power elite.” (I realized this also when I run for president of the College Supreme Student Council of Colegio San Agustin-Bacolod.) This “power elite” could be described as a relatively small, loosely knit group of people who tend to dominate our country’s policy making.
This group includes bureaucratic, corporate, intellectual, military, and government elites, who control the principal institutions in the Philippines, and whose opinion and actions influence the decisions of the policymakers.
Sometimes voters in all regions are influenced by their networks that handle propaganda on TV, newspapers, and radio.
The pressure group could be in the Empire of Philippine Economics that controls and owns the malls, transportation, industry, manufacturing conglomerates, cartel of all sorts, and even the multinational firms. That could be the reason why major political parties have their “think tank” to study and make strategies to connect to the “power elite” or “pressure group.”
Presidential candidates always see to it that they are inside the “political balloon.” This includes the leagues where mayors, vice mayors, councilors, barangay captains, governors, and vice governors are there.
This balloon can always come up with its own candidates to serve its own purpose. Politics is more complicated than what is expected. It is a “Game of Thrones” with the participation of demagogues.
We hate political dynasty, but we love to be inside the dynasty to sustain our political ambition. Members of political dynasties always look forward to their icon, the patriarch or matriarch.
Any candidate for president may seek the blessing of the dynasty head. The head can let his political machinery function down to the last barangay resident in his “sitio.” The power of deterrence can be provided only by a dynasty but it always goes with a price for a presidential candidate (before or after the election).
Astute planners of the “think tank” will always seek a worm hole in the political party of the opponent to create a faction of extremists. That may start the first strike (using political nuclear weapon) that would cripple the enemy’s capacity to retaliate.
Politics is synonymous to war. In war you have your war room. In politics, you have your political machine under the command of skilled politicians. (They even fabricate political surveys that appear genuine.)
Winning the Office of the President is not the maneuver of venerable persons. It is always the brainchild of “the bad, the good, and the ugly.” If the candidate becomes president, his first concern is how to achieve peaceful co-existence in his palace.
“They should be polarized into warring factions.”
To a politician who wants to put on the “Shoe of the President,” please be reminded by what Lord Acton (British historian) said, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”