Sure it’s a race. But it’s not only the candidates who will win or lose—it’s us, as well.
The constant danger, when reporting about an electoral contest, is to focus on the horse race and to forget about the issues. And for reminding us in the media—and the electorate in general—about what really matters in an election, I must thank Bernie Sanders, the American candidate who is seeking the Democratic nomination in the upcoming US polls later this year.
Sanders, in what journalists hereabouts call an “ambush” interview, declared recently that he will not play the game that media wants him to play, which is to hit at his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Sanders said that he and Clinton disagree on certain issues but insisted that he likes her and respects her even when their opinions diverge.
As Sanders explained it, he wants to divide the American electorate less and to unite them more behind issues like raising the minimum wage, the destruction of the middle class, the lack of universal health care and the problem of most of the country’s wealth going to the top one percent of the population. All these problems, he said, are more important than the daily back-and-forth sniping that media expects the candidates to engage in.
As we plunge headlong into our own campaign period, we would be doing ourselves and our country a huge favor if we are able to set aside our bitter partisan feelings and consider candidates the way they should be considered: As applicants for various jobs that can improve our lives or cause us to sink deeper into the mire of poverty and stagnation.
If the Second Aquino administration has taught us anything, after all, it should be that polarizing the people may be a good strategy for winning elections, if you can rile up enough people against other people. But picking a winner doesn’t necessarily mean the entire country benefits—it just means you picked a winner.
It could also mean electing someone who will keep alienating the people, because that is what he thinks the people want by choosing him. And ensuring that the cycle continues.
In the current race, we have no shortage of people who are once again claiming to be the opposite of other people. There are even those who promise to continue the politics of polarization, using the same tired, old formula that gave us six years of a President who will not even wear a Philippine flag on his lapel, so proud is he of dividing the nation.
These are the politicians who, according to Bernie Sanders, may have forgotten that people may be tired of the ceaseless bickering and oneupmanship in the media. Let’s hope the Filipino voters are just as tired as Sanders thinks their American counterparts are.
It’s not just a race, after all. It’s really closer to a matter of life or death for an entire country.
* * *
While most people and politicians seem to have come down hard with election fever, you have to worry about who’s minding the store. In particular, you have to wonder what the precipitous fall of world oil prices is doing to millions of Filipinos working in the hard-hit Arab economies—and not just those working in the oil fields, who actually make up the minority of our workers there.
Senator Ralph Recto is one of the few doing the worrying. And he’s come up with a proposal for government to use its vast financial resources to give aid to Filipinos working in the flagging Arab states.
Recto has proposed the use of the P2.5-billion contingency fund of President Noynoy Aquino to help returning Filipino workers, thousands of whom are being laid off in the Middle East because of declining oil prices. The use of the fund for retraining returning workers and providing them with other aid was made necessary, according to Recto, because the national budget could never have predicted that oil would fall to its current $30 per barrel price.
“This is one macroeconomic assumption which the current budget missed,” Recto said. “In fact, the budget, which will be financed in part by taxes on imported oil, was based on an oil price forecast of $55 to $75 a barrel for 2016.”
Another possible source of funding to aid returning OFWs, according to Recto, is the P67.5-billion Unprogrammed Fund in the budget, which can be only drawn if specific or general revenue collection for the year exceeds target. “What is funny is that while the language of this fund reserves P30 billion of it for contingent liabilities of Public Private Partnership projects, not a single centavo is earmarked for displaced OFWs,” Recto said.
I wonder if there are still administration officials who aren’t so busy with the elections that they will heed Recto’s call. Maybe, just maybe, these people will also spare a thought for our distressed overseas workers and nudge Aquino—never mind if this is the same President who famously said “buhay pa naman kayo, di ba?”