The real tragedy, to paraphrase the oft-quoted observation, is that sometimes, political jokes get elected. And unless the laws are changed, no one can prevent anyone from seeking office, no matter how laughable their chances.
I can’t really fault the Commission on Elections for accepting the applications of just about everyone who wants to run for President or any other elective position. Comelec didn’t make the rules, after all; all it can do is winnow out the serious from the nuisance after the fact of filing, based on rules that it did craft.
“Many people want their five minutes of fame,” Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista told me in an interview, deducting 10 minutes from the original Warholian saying. “We can’t stop people from declaring that they want to run for office.”
That includes, among the dozens who have submitted their applications to file a certificate of candidacy for President, people like the guy wants to be called the Archangel Lucifer. And all those other borderline crazy people who have been trooping to Comelec in what the editorial writer of this newspaper called “the clash of clowns.”
It’s true that the Constitution itself allows just about everybody of a certain age, nationality and residency to seek the presidency and other elective offices. As the old joke says, it’s harder to apply for a janitor’s position in government than to seek to become President.
Of course, I understand that any legislation imposing higher standards for people seeking elective office can be adjudged as discriminatory. And in a democracy like ours, which supposedly holds the people’s will to be the highest law, any attempt to prevent certain people from seeking office can be interpreted as elitist or even a violation of rights that should be given to all.
In the weeks that will follow, the poll body will do just that, however—but using criteria like the ability to run a nationwide campaign and other highly technical stuff to ensure that only serious candidates are actually allowed to seek office. In the meantime, we will all have to bear the sight of people who should not even be allowed to operate machinery or perhaps even cross the street unaided declaring their desire to run.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on the people who appear, on the surface, to be a couple of bottles short of a case of San Miguel Beer. The craziness afflicts everyone who seeks elective office, after all, whether they be the sanest-looking, most well-funded frontrunners or the looniest of the attention-seekers who trudge to Intramuros every three and six years, vowing to give every family millions or to make us part of a new American state.
It’s Crazy Week at Comelec. And like even the craziest of governments, it, too, will pass.
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It also requires a little craziness, not to mention intestinal fortitude, to keep seeking election after repeated rejection at the polls. And if Congress is really serious about changing the rules on who is qualified to run for office, perhaps it should also consider putting a cap on the number of elections anyone is allowed to run in—like a reverse of the law on term limits.
Take for instance, people like Liberal Party senatorial candidate Risa Hontiveros. Hontiveros is seeking a Senate seat for the third consecutive election, after being rejected by voters in the two successive exercises.
And Hontiveros really is that rare election loser who has not been lacking in resources, name recall and—in the run-up to this coming poll—a cushy government position from which to relaunch her flagging political career. If Hontiveros still loses in her latest bid, perhaps she should really consider not seeking office anymore—or at least taking a respite from standing for election.
Hontiveros first ran for the Senate with President Noynoy Aquino in 2010, almost making it into the “Magic 12.” In the 2013 midterm polls, with Aquino firmly in power, Hontiveros ran again—and lost again.
Then, Hontiveros was given a board seat in PhilHealth, the government’s hospital insurance fund, which allowed her to become the unpaid “image model” of the agency in its ubiquitous advertising campaigns paid for by our taxes. It is the final big push for Hontiveros, one of Aquino’s favorite people and a card-carrying member of his token leftist clique at the palace.
Of course, there’s a big chance that Hontiveros’ long-runningcourtship of the electorate will once again end in grief. And if she loses again, there’s also a big chance that the next administration will not look upon her as kindly as the current one has—meaning she has to win a Senate seat now because she will never have a chance to win ever again.
This is where a cap on running for office will come in handy. It will save us all from seeing Hontiveros run and fail again for a fourth straight time, like the nuisance that she has become.