Why are the good, the bad, and the ugly running together?
Because in this country, we do have a distorted sense of values, because we are very strict in hiring casuals, contractual, and ''pakyaw'' workers, but very liberal in accepting candidates for president, here we are, with one hundred thirty candidates for the highest position of the land. There are octogenarians, retirees, jobless and homeless outcasts, and tricycle drivers filing their certificates of candidacy, only to be excluded as nuisance candidates later. This is plain stupidity that we are all guilty of. Indonesia, Malaysia, and even Laos and Myanmar have more stringent qualifications for their heads of state and government.
The Philippine Constitution only requires that one who is aspiring for the presidency must know how to read and write. We do not require a diploma, a transcript of record, and a certificate of eligibility. We make much ado about citizenship and residence but we do not mind the matter on competencies and education. Most of these candidates who have the gall to aim for the chief executive position cannot even qualify as a probationary worker of San Miguel Corporation, and their personality cannot even pass for a casual employee of Shoemart. Yet, the law allows them to run for president.
It is not the fault of a retired teacher from Pampanga to file her COC for president. She is much qualified given the minimal requirements under the Constitution. And yet, this is a plain charade because the COMELEC does not respect the Constitution by eliminating these candidates within a few days. Who says that a law or a COMELEC regulation can override the fundamental law of the land? If they are qualified under the Constitution, what gives the COMELEC the authority to cancel their COC's on the ground of being nuisance candidates? Disqualifying them would be a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction.
The Constitution raises the expectations of people, even if they are morons, nincompoops or plain stupid, by allowing every Tomas, Dikoy, and Hilaria to run for president, only to be eliminated from the race later. What is the authority of the COMELEC to contradict the Constitution? If we do not want nuisance candidates, then we should amend the constitutional qualifications for the presidency. We should require a masters' degree or even a doctorate degree from UP, Ateneo, Harvard, or Yale, even if that would again be attacked as elitism and violative of the tenets of democracy.
The best way is to apply democracy in electing but meritocracy in running. Only those with enough education, experience and also the physical and mental health and emotional stability can run, as certified by a panel of doctors and psychologists. We get the government we deserve because we elect stupid people and put rascals, scoundrels, and scalawags in public offices. We elect lunatics, psychopaths, and emotionally unstable officials. Then we complain about ineptitude and grafts. We have no one else to blame but ourselves. The answer to our woes is in our hands but we persist in not doing something draconian to rectify it.
As Shakespeare put it: "The fault, my dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." I would even say that we are plain silly, crazy, if not totally stupid. We know very well that there is something very wrong. And we keep on doing it, and complain. I don't know about you. As for me, I will refuse to vote with these kinds of choices we are being presented with. Let us not lend a semblance of propriety to this exercise in plain stupidity.
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