Politics is bewildering

Politics is really bewildering. We opened the papers yesterday morning and the first story we read was that "billionaire" presidential candidate Eddie Gil of the Partido Isang Bansa Isang Diwa had been disqualified as a presidential candidate by the Comelec. This is the candidate that promised to pay the Philippines’ astronomical $53 billion foreign debt should he be next president of the country. Another report said that he added that he would also make every Filipino a millionaire. We will be the first country in the world where even garbage collectors will be millionaires.

But what is truly interesting were the revelations of just how Eddie Gil is coping with the times. It seems as if he is notorious for issuing bouncing checks, including the ones he issued the government for his property taxes from 1991 to 1996 and the checks he issued to pay for his hotel and transportation campaign bills in Cagayan de Oro. When he filed his certificate of candidacy this year and during the 2001 senatorial elections, he had three different birth dates and places of birth. In the space for gender, he wrote "Filipino," and in that for occupation, he put a plural term "businessmen," and for his wife’s maiden name he wrote her married name "Erlinda Gil". The Comelec must be congratulated for weeding him out of the presidential race.

The next interesting item is that the on-again, off-again talk between two opposition candidates – Fernando Poe, Jr. and Sen. Panfilo Lacson – in order to reach an agreement to unite forces for the coming elections has not only not materialized, now, they are trading barbs. For both their sakes, we hope they reach an amicable agreement.

Amang Rodriguez once said that politics is addition. That was an over-simplification. Politics is also subtraction, division and multiplication. You add to your votes if you can subtract them from your opponents. And the votes will be less meaningful if they are divided between the different candidates. You multilply your strength when candidates withdraw in your favor.

What really complicates this coming presidential elections is the fact that we have far too many candidates. With the Comelec decreeing that Eddie Gil is a nuisance candidate, we still have five contenders for president. We cannot vote according to the parties they belong to as political parties today no longer have platforms. So it will be a matter of personal choice. Up to this point in time, we are not clear as to where and what the different candidates stand for. The only thing that is obvious is that the two main contenders are President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Fernando Poe, Jr. What may determine the May 10 elections are the three remaining candidates who may decide to withdraw their candidacy in order to throw their support for either PGMA or FPJ. So far there has been no mud-slinging from any side.