EDITORIAL - Filipinos being patronized and insulted

Because there is really no way of skirting the obvious, which is that the Senate is being used to scuttle the presidential bid of Vice President Jejomar Binay, Filipinos are being patronizingly told that it is to their best interests that Binay be unmasked now while there is still time, for God knows what will happen if they make the mistake of sending him to Malacañang.

In reality, Filipinos need not be told what they already know and have known for a long time -- that they are doomed to have another president in 2016 (and it doesn't even have to be Binay) who, without exception, will be exactly like all the previous ones since Marcos without exception. If they differ at all, they will only differ in the degree by which they are corrupt and inefficient.

The critics of Binay say it is necessary to weigh him now? That is a lot of bull. If they are only willing to rid themselves of hypocrisy, they will realize how funny they sound actually. Why, they might even get the shock of their lives to realize the much-reviled Marcos was actually the last person for whom qualification truly mattered as a real election issue.

Every other president after Marcos had qualifications that were completely ignored. Cory Aquino? Qualifications did not matter. Her being a housewife was even made the rallying point in a campaign where the operative phrase was "anybody but Marcos." Remember? Remember? Or are we just being hypocrites here? Ramos -- did it matter what qualifications he had? or was Cory's anointment all there was to his presidential run?

And then there was Joseph Estrada. Bo ho ho. Out the window flew even the slightest pretense of concern for qualification. Gloria Arroyo? No need for her to be qualified as well, as she already ensconced herself after succeeding Estrada. On the subject of qualification, though, didn't Filipinos set that aside as well as far as her opponent went, Fernando Poe?

And then of course along came Noynoy Aquino, for whom qualification absolutely did not matter, not even if he was on nobody's radar before death took his mother and thrust him forward as a contender. Whatever qualification Noynoy had -- there was none -- was overshadowed by the fact that he was Cory's son. And now there are people who have the temerity to tell us otherwise -- that in the case of Binay, qualification suddenly mattered?

If Binay must be destroyed, let him be destroyed for its own sake. Let his political enemies man up to their designs and say so, instead of trying to patronize Filipinos that the destruction of Binay is for the sake of the nation. It is bad enough already that Filipinos are being robbed of their right to be governed fairly and efficiently, it is worse when they are being poisoned and told it is for their health and well-being.