Is Yogi Ruiz a Libertarian party personification?

Few columns ago, I wrote about a third political force in the United States of America. The Libertarian Party had just then concluded its national convention to find a nominee for the 2024 US presidential and vice presidential election. I said that the Libertarian Party selected Chase Russell Oliver as its presidential bet. Reading from its failure in the past American elections though, I tend to agree with some observers that this third US political force will still suffer defeat in the 2024 polls.

Many Americans however seem not to look at the continued failures of the Libertarian Party as their guide in electoral decisions. Failures to them are just steps leading to success. The more failures they endure, the closer they are to victory. For instance, they had in their economic/scientific history a Thomas Edison who reportedly failed a thousand times before he succeeded in inventing the light bulb.

In politics, they have a model in President Abraham Lincoln. Most lectures on the life of Lincoln dwell on the number of defeats he suffered before winning the coveted presidency. Accordingly, he had six failures. History professor Lucas Morel compiled Lincoln’s pre-presidential life in this enumeration: 1832, defeated for state legislature; 1838, defeated for speaker; 1843, defeated for nomination for Congress; 1854, defeated for US Senate; 1856, defeated for nomination for vice president; 1858, again defeated for US Senate.

In the minds of the members of such known third groups as the Libertarian, Constitution, Green, Natural Law and Reform Parties is a quote from Plato. “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” While this Plato statement may have been proven to be historically true, I can accept a modification. Let me tone it somewhat down. It is not always that evil men rule over good men because of the latter’s indifference to public affairs.

In Philippine governance, the indifference of good men has resulted in their being ruled by incompetent people. As an example, let me cite the case of Senator Robin Padilla. His popularity as a movie actor is never an equivalent in competence to become a legislator. Yet the country made him number 1 in the last elections. In Cebu City, he placed number 3. So, what happened? Senator Padilla was made as a grotesque figure in the Senate’s Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes! Few days ago, Senator Padilla said he will talk to the leaders of Communist China to resolve the issue of the West Philippine Sea, a statement revealing his ignorance of Philippine law.

Cebu City has had practically but one family composing a political party. This is the Osmeña Family. The later heads of emerging challenging groups like Ortiz, Cuizon, Duterte, Garcia, and Rama were originally surrogates of the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan. Because they politically germinated from the Osmeña seeds, they could not offer a different political thought. If the Rama/Garcia tandem eventually breaks up and they run for mayor against each other, in 2025, they can still be expected to follow the BOPK governance philosophy because they were BOPK protégés. Well, Vice Mayor Garcia’s father, Atty. Alvin, entered politics as the vice mayor of Tomas Osmeña. The political line of Atty. Jose Daluz (if he runs for mayor) will also be that of BOPK because that is where he came from.

In fine, if this Yogi Ruiz pursues the city mayorship, he will somewhat personify the Libertarian Party and let us see if Cebuanos can put in motion the Plato thought.