Is the year 2016 the year we can fix ourselves?

This is our first column for the Year 2016 and we pray that this year would usher a new hope for the Filipino people… that finally for this New Year 2016 we would see a real transformation of our nation and people. For nearly two decades in my journalism career, there is one trait that we have learned about the Filipino… that we just don’t learn from our past mistakes. It is my earnest hope and prayer that for this year… the Filipino as a person and as a nation would start fixing whatever is wrong with our nation and us.

Perhaps we have been “cursed” by what the late Pres. Manuel L. Quezon once quipped when he said, “I prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans.... because, however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it.” Next month we will be observing (not celebrating) the 30th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution… so before that historic date comes this February, let us take time to reflect and ponder whether the EDSA Revolt was worth it… that removing the unlamented conjugal Marcos Dictatorship and supposedly returning this nation back into the road to democracy was the right thing to do?

My take on this is simply… the People’s Power Revolt in EDSA happened at the right time simply because at that time, the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship was thought to be a nearly indestructible political monolith that no one could break apart, hence the Filipino people took matters into their hands and removed the Marcos Dictatorship especially after the Filipino people learned that right after the Snap Elections…on Feb. 9, 1986 some 30 computer programmers walked out of the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) because they were ordered to cheat for the Marcoses.

But as my mentor and good friend, the late Max V. Soliven would write in the years following the EDSA Revolt…”EDSA is an unfinished revolution, which started in EDSA…but the Filipino people was supposed to finish this revolt… but alas, fell back to apathy.” Indeed, 30 years after the 1st EDSA Revolt… Philippine politics have gone from bad to worse. Sure we may have restored our democratic processes… but let us ask ourselves…where did our democracy go so wrong? Lets fast forward to the present and look at our choice for President? There you can see how things have gone so wrong!

If there was anything I got from attending those Christmas parties last Christmas… it is that, people come to me to ask one common question, “Who are we voting for President in the coming 2016 Presidential elections?” This is the million-peso question begging for an answer. During the deadline of filing of certificates of candidacies (CoC) at the Comelec, a record of around 130 people filed to run for President. Yet of the five more famous names… all of them have issues, which we already wrote about… thus we are a nation suffering from a national dilemma. Better believe that many Netizens greeted the New Year with a prayer and a wish for a good leader.

But whether we like it or not, the die has been cast and this nation is headed towards a national election this May with no change in sight. Unless God himself grants this nation a miracle… we are headed towards a Presidential election with all the trouble signs warning blaring away.

We already know that the survey leader, Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay has corruption issues, then there’s Sen. Grace Poe who may have gotten a TRO from the Supreme Court (SC) but her future as a candidate still hangs precariously, which is quite very uncertain. Then there is that political meteor, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who was caught with his foot in the mouth by cursing Pope Francis, the Catholic Church and suddenly even our dreams of changing into a Federalized Philippines is now on the rocks.

What’s left are two candidates… former DILG Sec. Manuel “Mar” Roxas whose popularity never went up despite his being the “anointed one” of Pres. Aquino. We can only reckon that this is due to his campaign promise to continue with the unpopular Daang Matuwid, which to many of us means…another six years of a P-Noy clone! The last popular candidate is Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago… who hasn’t campaigned outside Metro Manila… but is she healthy? We really don’t know.

So whoever is your choice for President…it is now more than crucial to choose the right Vice Presidential candidate and the front-runners are Sen. Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr., Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Sen. Chiz Escudero and Rep. Leni Robredo. If Sen. Marcos wins the VP race, and whoever gets to be President is either disqualified or imprisoned… then 30 years after the EDSA Revolt…we get a Marcos back in Malacañang Palace?

Does this bring us back to square one 30 years after the EDSA Revolt? Again we can only hope and pray that we Filipinos learn to fix our past mistakes. So the Comelec should take this as a fair warning… that if they participate in a massive electronic dagdag bawas, then history might just repeat itself! So to our readers… is 2016 the year we can fix ourselves?

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