EDITORIAL - Think and think right

When it comes to the 2010 elections, three main issues come to mind: 1) Whether there even be elections at all (in light of cha-cha, etc). 2) Personalities (who will be running). 3) Manner of the polls (automated or manual).

Of the three, the least crucial issues are Numbers 1 and 3. That is because however the country may proceed, whether or not we change the charter, and whether or not we go automated, it will still not answer the bigger question of whether or not we will be properly governed.

The most crucial of the three issues is therefore issue Number 2, or Personalities, the who or what kind of people we will be electing to positions that, in one way or another, will be determining the course of our national life for at least the next three to six years.

Yet look at the way Filipinos are expending precious time discussing issues Number 1 and Number 3. These issues deal with models and modes. If the subject were movement, we would be discussing land, sea or air transportation, and cars, seacraft and aircraft.

We do not seem very much interested in the drivers, captains and pilots. We seem to forget that any mode or model of transport, in able hands, will always have a better chance of safe deliverance than the best and greatest modes and models handled by the wrong hands.

We still have about a year before we again go through the agonizing ritual of seeing democracy in action, only to discover almost immediately thereafter that democracy, if used improperly, will always turn out a farce, capable of delivering nothing but a big fat egg.

Let the issues of charter change and poll automation unravel by themselves. If they are meant to be, they will happen. If not, then won’t. But the matter of personalities, of choosing the right leaders is something that is entirely in our hands.

Charter change or not, poll automation or not, it is the kind of leaders that we elect that will spell the difference between moving forward or staying rooted in the same old rut. We don’t need to spend anything. All we need to do is think and think right.