THE second round of the presidential debates will be this Sunday in UP Cebu.
Our mayor Rodrigo Duterte is going to the event, contrary to false information online that he is backing out. The poster online insinuates that Duterte is afraid to go to another UP after facing the UPLB students.
Miriam Santiago sadly is backing out due to health reasons. The debates will sorely miss her firepower and punches. It leaves Duterte now to carry the show with his usual verbal quips.
We hope the debate this time fares better than the first round held last month in Cagayan de Oro. That there will be more substance and less ads.
That debate in CdO hardly drew good points from the presidentiables, as time limits and lengthy ads took away precious time for the candidates to talk of issues.
We also hope that the questions this time would focus on substantive issues. Not like the first round, where it was touted as a Mindanao forum, but only one of the three topics was about Mindanao which is about the failed Bangsamoro Basic Law.
The Visayas leg of the debate will tackle climate change, and disaster preparedness, education, women's rights, and health. It was Leyte and other parts of Visayas that was hit hard by Yolanda, the worse storm in recent history. Also hit hard was candidate Mar Roxas’ ambitions and capability to handle a crisis.
Climate change issues are substantive as we are experiencing the worse storms and El Niño, and many places are vulnerable. The issue also is linked to the worsening state of our environment as large-scale mining, plantations and coal-fired power plant are polluting our lands and rivers.
Recently, a Mindanao summit on large-scale mining challenged presidentiables to make the environment protection an agenda in their governance. Duterte and Grace Poe were the only ones who committed to this agenda.
Perhaps enjoying a surge of sorts in this race is Duterte, who made his campaign sortie in Tacloban, ground zero of Yolanda, earlier this week that drew large crowds. The people remembered he was the mayor outside Visayas to first visit the place and deployed volunteers to help them in the worst of times.
While Duterte enters the debate on such note, other presidentiables are facing controversial issues leading up to the debates. Jejomar Binay and Mar Roxas are each facing revelations of misuse of government funds, Binay on the overpriced Makati parking lot, and Roxas on unliquidated DILG funds worth more than a billion pesos. Grace Poe has also drawn flak for statements defending his new-found supporter Danding Cojuangco on the coco levy fund. The Supreme Court decision on her qualification to run has also drawn criticisms.
But all these will be set aside on Sunday. We hope Sunday’s debate will bring out which candidate has substance and clear agenda. We also hope the debate will do well to inform and educate voters. It’s a pity that in this electoral race, debates are missing. Instead, our elections are being spun as a popularity contest, determined by who is topping surveys and who gives out the most money. Elections are marred with endless bickering, gimmicky ads and online wars. Can we have a more substantive election this time?
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