Due to the nature of my day job, I was able to witness most of the events surrounding the recently concluded UK elections as they breathlessly took place. The first televised prime ministerial debate, for instance, was more enlightening than I had expected. Aside from acting as a crash course on the ABCs of British democracy, the exercise also confirmed that I do have an eye for spotting unlikely doppelgängers; Gordon Brown is Paolo Contis in 25 years, don’t you think? It’s a skill I’m particularly proud of, but I digress.
Britain has been around way longer than the Philippines, but that didn’t stop me from wishing that we could rearrange our electoral system to be as formal as theirs. Barring a random alien invasion, I imagine a future wherein our own politicians articulate their platforms with the most mordant of wits, in the snazziest of suits and with the aid of the space-age smartphone Tony Stark used in Iron Man 2. Alas, Sarah Geronimo singing “Loren, Loren, ikaw…” (among other strange things) shook me from this tie-dyed wet dream.
If there’s one thing I’m looking forward to on May 10, it’s that finally, we’ll all be free from the clutches of “pa-poor” candidates and their condescending campaign ads. In this light, bagging a brand-new leader for the next six years is just gravy. A sane person, after all, can only take so much inanity before he or she decides to skip the tube altogether and seek the warmth of a computer screen. Suddenly, an endless cycle of Easy Pha-max Wheatgrass C.A.N. commercials — featuring the perky and permatanned Dyan Castillejo and her equally perky and permatanned son — doesn’t seem so hellish.
Next, in the quest for votes, some Filipino politicians have turned to using what seem to be agency-approved soundbites in their 30-second television ads. There’s the feminist mestiza senatorial wannabe who unwittingly objectified herself by proclaiming “Maganda ang laban,” a not-too-subtle allusion to the fact that she may not look like your dog’s dinner. Then there’s the ex-candidate who has wisely chosen to customize his picks for president and vice-president. About the latter, he declares, “Ang bise presidente ko kulay Pilipino,” and by doing so comes off as slightly racist. There’s no such thing as “kulay Pilipino” because Filipinos today come in all hues, some of which are not necessarily burnt sienna.
Last, I also realized that a handful of our political aspirants sport rather peculiar nicknames. If you’re a government official, answering to a somewhat absurd appellation is like using Comic Sans or Jester in your campaign posters: you will not be taken seriously. I already live in constant fear of accidentally liking a Justin Bieber song, so I don’t think I can handle the added stress of waking up and finding out that our elected leaders were named after junk food or a kind of date-rape drug. Let the secondhand embarrassment commence.
What we need on Monday, as the nation troops to the polls, is the collective ability to see past the slick tropes and focus on what really matters: a candidate’s legislative and executive work experience. Vote wisely, everyone, and here’s to six years of hope and progress.
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