More of the same

The Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats cannot possibly field two women for the nation’s top two posts in 2004, so no one was surprised when Sen. Loren Legarda resigned from the ruling party yesterday. President Arroyo’s announcement of her turnaround on 2004 is expected in a few days, and some of her handlers are hoping to get the very popular Sen. Noli de Castro as her running mate — if the Lopez clan won’t field "Kabayan" himself as a presidential bet.

Even while Legarda was with Lakas, it was no secret that she was courting the Nationalist People’s Coalition’s Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. to draft her as his running mate. If the San Miguel Corp. chairman won’t run, Legarda is hoping that action king Fernando Poe Jr. will, and that she will be his running mate under the banner of the NPC and Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino — a coalition that is supposed to enjoy the financial support of Cojuangco. Now where will this leave Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who firmly believes he will be the opposition’s standard-bearer?

The problem is that Cojuangco is still pinning his hopes on Charter change and a shift to a parliamentary system and would rather not risk a second stab at the presidency. FPJ, on the other hand, is still adamantly against running. But that was as of yesterday.

It’s useless for President Arroyo to seek a moratorium on politicking. Parties are preparing for 2004. The political season is in full swing, and none of the likely candidates for high office offers hope for any significant improvement in our lives. What almost all the personalities in the political firmament promise is more of the same — populist policies, corruption, and vaudeville to keep the public entertained and distracted from the nation’s problems.

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With the crop of unimpressive candidates now emerging, I’m not surprised that Filipinos overseas have shown little interest in participating in the elections in May 2004.

Of an estimated 7.5 million Filipinos living abroad, about 1.7 million are eligible to vote. The government expected no more than 900,000 of those eligible voters to sign up for absentee voting. At the end of the original deadline for the registration, however, only 350,029 had signed up.

The upside here is that with so few Filipinos registering to vote, politicians have fewer excuses to go on junkets overseas to campaign.

Even if the government extends the deadline to Christmas, I don’t think there’s going to be a rush to registration centers abroad. It’s not just the hassle of going to the registration centers or the weak campaign to drum up interest in absentee voting. The interest simply isn’t there. In the United States in particular, Filipinos are aiming for citizenship and will go back to their native country only if deported and flown back to the Philippines handcuffed to a plane seat. Why would they be interested in participating in Philippine elections?

It’s sad but true, and this has been validated by survey after survey: given the opportunity, a significant number of Filipinos would start new lives abroad.

This wish can only be reinforced when Filipinos consider the likely winners in 2004.

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Before we know the winners, we have a rocky path to the elections. Cleaning up the voters’ list has been tedious work. Full poll automation isn’t going to happen in 2004, according to the Commission on Elections. Why aren’t we surprised?

Our national leaders should be focusing their energies on ensuring that next year’s electoral exercise — so crucial to national survival — will be clean, peaceful and credible. Each voter will be choosing over two dozen officials, from president down to councilor. It will be the first presidential election since EDSA II and emotions are expected to run high as the opposition battles the child of people power 2, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Results of the election for president in particular have to be credible; anything less would be a recipe for national disaster.

Instead of working to keep the elections clean, however, our politicians are busy with venomous campaigns to bring down their rivals — even before candidacies are formally declared and the campaign period officially starts.

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Lawmakers aren’t interested in campaign finance reforms. There are supposed to be caps on campaign spending, but Comelec efforts to implement the rules have been laughable.

With no caps on campaign contributions and no one keeping tabs on candidates’ financiers, we will have the usual winners beholden to gambling lords, smugglers, and big businessmen who will want payback as soon as their candidates are ensconced in office.

This administration created such a stink about drug money financing political campaigns, but to this day nothing has been done to prevent "narcopolitics" from adding to the usual election chaos.

Such campaign practices guarantee the perpetuation of the culture of corruption. Don’t expect our lawmakers, however, to lift a finger to stop a system where they are among the biggest beneficiaries.

The elections in May 2004 will be marred by the usual guns, goons and gold, aggravated by a lackluster effort at poll automation and a failed attempt to get Filipinos overseas to participate.

With this state of affairs, do we really care who is paired with whom in the presidential race?

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KISS AND MAKE UP? And who cares about the elections or campaign spending when all’s well that ends well between Kris and Joey?

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FAKE DOLLARS? I received complaints that certain banks are refusing to accept the $100 bill (1996 series) for conversion to pesos. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has clarified that there is no order to reject that particular dollar bill, and has enjoined all banks to continue accepting the bills for conversion. One major bank, however, reportedly refused to accept the dollars after receiving many counterfeit $100 bills of the 1996 series. Those with questions or complaints can call the BSP’s Currency Analysis and Redemption Division at 524-2777 or 524-7011 local 2296.