The circus, as the election campaign is often called, came to town, so to speak, to the Queen City of the South with the holding of the second PiliPinas Debates 2016, the debate series administered by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in preparation for the National Elections come May 09.
And what a circus, or show, it was, making the already dry weather in Cebu City even feverishly hotter, with fireworks exploding even before the actual debate proper could start. It was the turn of TV 5, Philippine Star, Business World, Bloomberg TV Philippines, The Freeman Cebu, and Radio Mindanao Network (RMN) to host this leg of the series for broadcast, with veteran broadcast journalist and Head of TV5 News and Public Affairs, Luchi Cruz-Valdes, doing a yeoman’s job as moderator. Suffice it to say that in spite of the challenges that were faced even before the show came on air, Luchi and TV5 were able to pull it through. My hats off to TV 5 head honcho Noel Lorenzana and his team!
Even after the delay – one prominent government official said that perhaps it was deliberate to further whet the waiting public’s appetite – the debate proceeded well enough. In fact, a great many say it was well worth the wait. The format was far better than the first leg, if I must say. Here, the candidates were given an opportunity to pick the brains, and even the emotions, of the opponent assigned to them. The distinguished members of the panel – the Philippine Star’s editor-in-chief Amy Pamintuan and associate editor Marichu Villanueva, TV5’s Erwin Tulfo and Lourd De Veyra, RMN’s Rufil Banoc, and Bloomberg TV Philippines”s Tony Abad – propounded several incisive and pointed questions on the topics for this debate which included, among others, the pending Freedom of Information Bill, corruption, taxation, Yolanda rehabilitation, and the coco levy. In the end, I believe the choices of the voting populace were made more clear.
Debates of this nature are always a big help in elections, and I commend the COMELEC, under the able leadership of Chairman Andy Bautista, for this initiative. Hopefully, in the near future, we can have debates that tackle more the issues of national concern, such as mining, foreign direct investment and infrastructure development, as well as the candidates’ respective platforms of government, rather than look more at the personalities of the candidates or, to a mundane extent, what they are wearing or who they are with at a particular time.
No need to debate on that.