Spot the difference

Even with a much-shortened list of 33 candidates, there are people who are finding it hard to come up with 12 individuals they want installed in the Senate.

If you take out the candidates who are simply riding on famous surnames, or those with a track record for corruption, laziness and pathological insanity, you could count what’s left with the fingers of one hand.

Still, we must realize that 12 candidates will have to be declared senators in May, so we might as well try to pick the best from an underwhelming field of job applicants.

Selection would be easier if we could vote along party lines. As even the candidates themselves admit, however, party lines in this country are not drawn on the basis of issues. Two of the three “common candidates” are the best examples of this reality.

From the campaign spiels in the past weeks, you can tell that individual candidates of the two major coalitions can agree on many issues and disagree on others; there is no party stand on anything.

Party lines are not even based on personalities. The administration’s Team PNoy cannot accurately say, “You’re either with us or against us.” The battle of the two giant coalitions is not quite pro- or anti-Noynoy Aquino.

The head of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), Vice President Jejomar Binay, is a member of the Cabinet with established credentials in loyalty to the family of the late Ninoy and Corazon Aquino, including their only son.

Former President Joseph Estrada, another member of the UNA executive committee or the so-called Three Kings, is not seen as a critic of P-Noy.

Erap has also often said that he respected Cory Aquino even if she removed him as San Juan mayor after the EDSA revolt, and even if she supported EDSA 2, which kicked him out of Malacañang.

Attempts to paint UNA as an alliance of defenders of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have failed, precisely because the group has enough staunch anti-GMA members, starting with Binay and Erap, to disprove the tag.

As for the third “king” of UNA, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, he is neither pro-GMA nor pro-P-Noy. He is simply pro-Enrile. This is the norm rather than the exception for politicians in this country.

*  *  *

Candidates of the two major coalitions have often been asked what made their teams different from each other. Perhaps because of the badgering, the candidates have come up with answers, and there are two emerging distinctions.

For Team PNoy, the candidates are supposed to be the nation’s best hope for sustaining the reforms of the administration of daang matuwid or straight path.

For UNA, seven of its candidates told us at The STAR the other night that while they intend to support the administration when it’s doing the right thing, they are not going to be “blind followers.” They presented themselves as the nation’s best hope of keeping the Senate independent of Malacañang and providing an effective system of checks and balances.

Or at least that’s what the two camps tell us. I know people who roll up their eyes when they try to fit the coalitions’ self-described roles to certain candidates, but the campaign season is the silly season.

Several of the UNA candidates downplay the achievements touted by the P-Noy administration, particularly on the economic front. Richard Gordon and Mitos Magsaysay point out, correctly, that GDP growth and high business confidence aren’t translating into job-generating foreign direct investments (FDI). The two candidates are among the most articulate in the UNA slate.

“I don’t wanna be a sourpuss, but you cannot eat GDP,” Gordon told us.

But the administration also acknowledges the slow FDI inflow and trickle-down effect.

Gordon and Magsaysay, incidentally, are rival clans in Olongapo-Zambales, with two of the congress-woman’s sons running against Gordon’s relatives for local positions in the May elections. Truly, politics makes strange bedfellows.

*  *  *

As of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey results released yesterday, UNA was trailing Team PNoy.

Gordon is no fan of surveys. Before the 2010 general elections, wherein he ran for president, he sued SWS and Pulse Asia, asking the Quezon City court to stop the publication of survey results. Surveys, Gordon told us the other night, “impress the uninitiated.” The case is languishing in court.

There are no party positions on surveys either.

Nancy Binay, the veep’s daughter, rose to seventh place in the SWS survey so she probably believes in such polls. Or at least she believes public perceptions can change dramatically even within a three-month campaign. Her father – as Gordon pointed out – started with a rating of two percent when he filed his bid for vice president in 2010, but eventually surged to victory.

There was agreement among the UNA candidates who dropped by The STAR that the country could use Charter change, although they differed on the extent of the amendments. But I think the sentiment is also shared by several Team PNoy bets.

Candidates from the two coalitions are also candid enough to admit that putting an end to political dynasties is not going to be initiated by politicians. They blame term limits imposed by the Constitution for encouraging dynasty-building.

The Catholic Church, which has weighed in with an open campaign against the principal supporters of the reproductive health law, has also not confined its condemnation to any particular political party. Those included by the Church in “Team Patay” are from different parties. Team Patay shouldn’t worry too much. If those numerous surveys showing high public support for RH were accurate, the candidates could benefit from the Church vilification campaign.

Without clear-cut party positions on many issues, voters are left to determine what each candidate stands for and intends to do if elected senator.

Some have strong ideas about their legislative agenda. Others appear lazy and clueless about the nature of the job.

If the parties and coalitions want people to vote along party lines, they need to do a better job of drawing clearer demarcation lines, and selling their virtues.

At this point, voters are looking at individuals rather than parties, and the choices generally boil down to which candidates are the lesser evil, the best among the worst.