Please send in the clowns, and entertain us with your brand of entertainment which is obnoxious and immoral, letting the voters to show the another chapter on how dysfunctional government is being ran.
Featuring two warring political warlords, the Otso Diretso and D30’s supported senatorial candidates. Each group has been touring the country to win the hearts of the voters, claiming that their candidates are the most qualified, a team to detoxify the ailing House of Senates. Critics supporting the Otso Diretso have been using the social media to discredit D30’s candidates, outlining the failures of D30 to his promise when he was elected surprisingly in 2016. From the D30’s camp, that the Otso Diretso, also known as, the Liberal Party, are the continuity of the Pnoy administration, and would continue the dysfunctional governance.
Other candidates have been hopping the various islands to reach the voters and promote their new brand of politics, making them as the agents to detoxify the ailing House of the Senate. And some independent senatorial candidates have been working hard to win the hearts of the voters who have been the victims of greed and excesses in the government.
And this mid-term election according to some political pundits is a litmus test for the presidency of Rodrigo Roa Duterte who was elected in May 2016 and have been working hard to make changes in the governance. Being heavily criticized by his opponents as a loud-mouth president, an anti-Catholic head of the state and considered making alliances with China and disengaging with the all-time favorite, the Americans.
Duterte has been waging war against drugs, corruption and poverty and at the same time, promoting Federalism. Side by side with all his war against the toxic “status quo”, he has been the front and centre in the infrastructure thru his continuous rally on “build, build, build” slogans, easing out the perennial traffic problems in Greater Metro Manila. He says: “A leader must be a terror to the few who are evil in order to protect the lives and well-being of the many who are good.”
In this mid-term election, there are 62 senatorial candidates vying for 12 coveted seats; there are 245 for representatives; 60 party list; 81 governor and vice governors; and 1,634 city and town mayors and thousands of councillors.
Ageing politicians have been fighting hard to win and maintain their power like Senator Enrile 94; former Manila Mayor Lim, 88; and former president and current mayor of Manila, Erap. (note: Imelda Marcos won as a representative in 2010 and not running this year.) And sibling wars like the warring Binays in Makati City: brother against sister for the Mayoralty position in the super-rich Makati City; and some, siblings against parents; uncles/aunts versus nephews or nieces. All these are blaring signs of a dysfunctional governance since time immemorial.
Some candidates are former plunderers, alleged narco users and pushers; some are expecting that they will become millionaires because of what most elected officials would say: “Politics is considered a big business.”
The stage is open for clowning, enticing the voters to vote for them as they picture their brand of leadership helping the poor.
And May 13, 2019, the winners take all! And the curtain will fall dividing again the rich from the poor.
