Last week, I met a long lost friend along the corridors of the Palace of Justice in Mandaue City. Lawyer Felipe Velasquez, might disagree with my description of him being long lost but the fact is that since I took a leave from the active practice of law, more than a decade ago, we have not seen much of each other.
In that brief encounter, he asked me to do him a "favor." Well, it is really a favor for all lawyers in Cebu island with age beyond 60 years. According to Eping, there is a reunion of sort for these lawyers. It will be a dinner at a posh hotel on December 6, 2014. He hastened to add for me not to mention the hotel because he desired the lawyers to get the details of this function from him. So, lawyers, aged more than 60 years, please call lawyer Felipe Velasquez at 254-3195 and join that gathering of lawyers on, to repeat, December 6, 2014.
Having taken care of that request, I will now try to look at the looming political horizon. This early, there is already an unimaginable positioning among presidential hopefuls. For instance, streams of expensive television plugs under the guise of announcing the best practices of certain local government units, of which Taguig City is one, are aired during prime time. It is remarkable to note that the underlying concept of this ad was employed, with tremendous success, by then vice presidential candidate Jejomar Binay, in the weeks leading to the 2010 polls. While the present plugs are very carefully packaged, the advertising objective is quite obvious.
The least expensive advertisement appears to be in the form of legislative investigation in aid of legislation. If I have not known the meaning of "tele-novela" the ongoing investigation of the senate blue ribbon committee, can best exemplify it. It is the least expensive ad because there are no production costs and no air-time fee to be paid. In fact, people from the media jostle against one another to find good angle for their precious footages during the senate investigation.
In this "tele-novela," the leading players have signified their intention to run for higher government positions in 2016, including the presidency. Senator Peter Allan Cayetano, for instance, was heard to have commented that as of July this year, the percentage of the voters who would vote for him president in the coming elections was hopelessly insignificant. But he was accordingly doing something to promote himself such that if the results of surveys would not register an improvement in his ratings in December, he would desist from pursuing Malacañang.
In this "tele-novela" the character portrayed to be the most abhorrent personality is the vice president himself. For weeks now, accusations of pillage and plunder are hurled his way. To lawyers like Eping and me, the questions asked of "witnesses" are incorrigibly leading and the conclusions drawn by committee members are mostly non-sequitors. But, if the objective of the investigation is really electoral advancement rather than in aid of legislation, the leading questions and the non-sequitors serve their purpose.
When the camp of Vice President Binay spoke recently of the blue ribbon inquiry as a part of the SN16 (Stop Nognog in 2016), the trumpeters mentioned the name of Secretary Mar Roxas, another perceived presidential contender as the promoter. In effect, this "tele-novela" has, at least, three characters.
Unfortunately for all these 3 "tele-novela" characters, my vote is not for anyone of them. No one among them will have his name on my ballot. It is reserved for a person, who, has, thus far, remained unheard from. He goes by the name Gibo Teodoro.
You see, the Sunday immediately preceding the second Monday of May 2010, when the presidency was at stake, I gathered my kids and their young friends to a dinner. It was Happy Father's Day. Towards the end of the meal, someone wanted to know for whom were our votes the following morning. I was awed to know that the hands of all young people around me were raised for Gibo.
When I revealed my preference to the disappointment of all, my son, asked me why I strayed from the parameters I previously set which were the same ones they used to arrive at their decision. After saying that if only I had not owed a candidate a favor in being one of his previous lawyers, to Gibo would my vote go.
Indeed, where is Gibo?