Kaka di popu!

What certain broadcasting networks and other entities have been conducting in anticipation of the 2010 presidential elections are highly commendable. One promises comprehensive and honest coverage. Another has initiated a campaign that addresses mainly the youth, urging them to count themselves in, for it starts with each one of us/them.

Strengthening our version of democracy, in perceived consequence the future of our country, is always an ennobling exercise. All these organizations trumpeting the need for change are also on the right track.  

Methinks however that something’s sorely missing. It could be a new slogan, arresting and intriguing. Something that sounds like gobbledygook, or a strange code that needs to be deciphered or explained.

I propose: KAKA DI POPU!

Very simply, it stands for “Kakayahan, di popularidad.” 

Let’s face it, a primary problem besetting our electoral processes, equaling the concern over cheating or the employment of the usual Goons, Guns and Gold, is the abysmal political immaturity of much of the so-called masa. 

Democracies have worked best in small states such as in Northern Europe where practically the entire society is made up of a strong middle class. One vote for each citizen may be a noble idea, but it doesn’t quite work to everyone’s fair benefits when an electorate’s broad spectrum ranges from geniuses like you readers of this column to the no-read-no-write minorities out in the boondocks.

Understandably, chafing at the bit occurs when a voter who happens to have a Ph.D., or has built up a company that employs hundreds, or has walked the corridors of power and is thus hip to all things developmental and envelopmental, affixes his/her thumbprint to a ballot, while realizing that his/her one vote can be negated by that of the maid next door or the tricycle driver down the block, or the indigene bereft of information other than occasional acquaintance with faces on the TV or movie screen.    

Unlike in that empowering exercise that is the game of basketball, where a shot from over 20 feet is rewarded with three points, as against two for an easy lay-up or one for an uncontested make from the charity stripe, democratic elections mandate that a vote by, say, either of our equally knowledgeable buddies Alex Magno and Jarius Bondoc, counts just as much as that of a a fresh registrant of an 18-year-old who’s nearly totally uneducated except in the ways of the labuyo out in the wilds of Bukidnon.

This young fellow may have only seen an old DVD starring Lito Lapid, and he will surely tick that name should the senator run for reelection. Well, thankfully, Bukidnon is not in Luzon’s Central Plains, so that’s a vote less for a comeback-ing governor.

Sure as hellfire (well, probably not) is that in our neck of the woods, NAME RECALL rules a terrible percentage of the votes for national office, especially for senator and, drats, president and vice-president. How else did Lapid and the Revillas wind up on the Senate floor, or Jaworski and Webb, or Noli de Castro as Veep?

It has long been incumbent for the more knowledgeable and responsible sectors to apply a collective effort and uplift the levels of discernment to be applied, if at all, by the less privileged in terms of education and information. Or at least to initiate the practice among these fellow voters.

And since it will take generations to instill such a level of responsibility among the entire electorate, a temporary measure may be conducted for the nonce, to drum it into everyone’s heads. Not name recall but some semblance of elementary study (maybe collegial discussions in every barangay)! Not popularity but assessed credentials! Hindi popularidad, kundi kakayahan. KAKA DI POPU!

Ironically, the same name-recall and popularity factors that propelled an Erap to the vice presidency thence an ill-fated presidency are likely to play a large part in determining our next president.

For the present I am happy to note that Noynoy Aquino has surged to the top of partial survey ratings, and that two other possibly formidable contenders happen to be even younger, and perhaps just as charged with idealism. I wouldn’t mind having either Noynoy or Gibo for president by mid-2010, or Chiz for that matter, except that his awesome gift of articulation in two languages often suggests a nearly robotic grasp of issues and a perfect pitch for memory and self-expression; either that or a snake-oil salesman’s smooth palaver.

Gibo and Chiz are evidently intellectually prepared. I’ll trust them to cross their t’s and dot their i’s, as well as ensure the validation of governance’s p’s and q’s. But for the so-called centrist forces, or, let’s call it a spade, the yellow-brick-road adherents such as myself as a Tita Cory devotee, these two younger gentlemen may be seen as beholden to interests that may well be of a trapo past.

Idealism is a funny thing — comparable to what the poet Emily Dickinson wrote, which AdMU School of Humanities dean Dr. Marlu C. Vilches serves as a quote in her e-mail postings: “Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul,/ And sings the tune without the words,/ And never stops at all.”

Yes, idealism also makes us vulnerable in our constancy. So call us cockeyed optimists, or irrational believers in that thing called destiny. Why, we even cite the procession in the heavens, as in the following recent AstroFlash item:     

“September 15 is the third of five passages of the Saturn-Uranus opposition (the first was in November 2008, the very date of Obama’s election; the final passage is in July 2010). Tension between freedom and responsibility. Collective awakening, jolts of change. Fear of the future and holding on to the past. Innovative reconstruction.

“The crises we face awaken us to broaden our perspective of our collective, the larger whole of which each one of us is a part. Reassessment, coming to terms with responsibility and commitment.... Evolving maturity, seeking resolution. Bright ideas, innovation, technology. Contradiction. Laughter. New creative force. Lightening in the dark. Conflict and struggle. Revolution.”

Hala, sige kayo!

Why, a certain Sister Emma is said to have shared her vision on the next President of the Philippines.

“She talked about how our country is blessed because God loves the Filipino people so much. God told her that we should not worry about all the problems we are experiencing. The United States is a rich, powerful nation and yet they are experiencing all sorts of calamities because they have turned away from God. She said in 2010, something will happen and after that, from 2011 to 2016, we will be experiencing a period of great prosperity. She said a young man will be elected President and our country will be showered with graces because of his leadership.

“She said that the Blessed Virgin showed her a vision of this young man sometime ago. ...He will bring about positive changes in our society. He will end the culture of graft and corruption but he will not seek revenge.

“She said she will come back during elections to vote for him and we should also all vote for him. She refused to give his name and just asked us to pray for discernment so we would know who to vote for. When asked what his distinctive feature is, she said ‘iyong noo.’”

Why (since we have to take everything seriously), that can be Noynoy or Gibo.

But then again, the showbiz factor kicks in, and it might just be what will propel Noynoy to top the actual polls. How formidable is a Kris-Korina-Shawie triumvirate? Ask yourselves another.

While I certainly hope that Mar Roxas is rewarded for his finest hour by being given six more years of preparation before taking over, and while I think Noynoy deserves to stamp his own brand of principled leadership on the Aquino legacy, would that all this happen principally due to hope (that thing with feathers) for what these two gentlemen can do for a continuum of at least 12 years?

And not because the fishmongers in Sarangani like hearing about what soap Kris uses for Baby James. Or that the tuba gatherers in Bugsuk Island believe in Korina’s “K.” Or that most of the overweight matrons who board Superferries empathize with Sharon Cuneta.

KAKA DI POPU! — They have to be told, repeatedly. Take the gentlemen candidates for what they’re inherently worth. Juday and Sarah Geronimo may be great entertainers, but their word as to our political choices shouldn’t carry a whit. That way we may also ensure that Edu Manzano gets into the Senate because we believe he can be a good public servant, and not just ‘cuz he fathered Lucky. 

A pipe dream, you’ll say. In these islands, how separate entertainment from politics, when often it’s unbridled entertainment that politicians generally provide?

But we have to start somewhere. Students voting for the first time ought not to rest on the laurels of simply being in the forefront of an awareness campaign that only obligates them to participate in the electoral process.

That participation behooves actual proselytizing among the masseuses in Boracay or wherever they may find themselves in summer. KAKA DI POPU! — They should say soon after they’ve selected oil or lotion. KAKA DI POPU! — We should tell tricycle drivers as we hand over our fare. KAKA DI POPU! — Forbes and Alabang residents should bankroll as a national campaign, and thus go beyond the simple orders they give the househelp herded to the polling precincts.

Of course we’ll take the numbers by way of testimonies from Kris, Korina and Ate Shawie. Just as we do the refs’ bad calls when they favor our basketball team. But wouldn’t it be nice, if in our pursuit of a future spelled out as PiNOY MARangal, most of the votes for that future come by way of educated (not necessarily formally) evaluation?

KAKA DI POPU!