We had a very interesting encounter with top political consultants and a mass communication expert last Friday at the Club Filipino.
Organized by Publicus Asia, Inc., the focus of the presentations made by Dr. Clarissa C. David of the UP College of Mass Communications Graduate Studies and our good friend Malou Tiquia, founder and general manager of Publicus Asia, Inc., was on understanding NOT the Filipino politician-candidate, but the “mindscape” of the Filipino voter. The technical term is the voter psychographics.
There should be space in future articles about the research findings, some of which defy current praxis in Philippine political strategy.
What struck me was an indictment made by Dr. David in the open forum, about the heavy responsibility media bears in elevating political discussions in this country, the kind of discussions and reports that influence the mindscapes of the average voter.
Tri-media trivializes politics. It talks and writes about “poli-tics instead of poli-cies”. Headlines like “Guess who’s coming to dinner”, and so much fuss about a cozy six-hour Chinese dinner with no less than the President where nothing of any substance (according to the guests) was discussed, she cited as an example.
I guess we are all guilty in some way. Political trivia indeed has taken the front seat, and more of the same will be expected in the next few months leading to the filing of presidential and vice-presidential candidacies.
Hopefully, the period after the filing in October 16, and during the campaign proper starting the first week of February next year, will be time for the voting public to hear from, and examine, the credentials of those who seek the highest office in the land as well as their stand on “poli-cies” rather than be regaled by the spectacle of the political circus.
We should get those who seek to lead us to debate seriously among themselves, and not be led by siren calls of popularity nor 30-minute infomercials and jingles or “anthems” (what a descriptive) put together by paid creative minds to “enhance” the chances of those driven by pure ambition and not public service.
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A giant step forward is the opportunity to listen to the country’s “best minds” in an attempt to “forge a consensus towards changing the political system by revising the 1987 Constitution to secure the country’s future”.
Again to be held at the Club Filipino this coming Wednesday, lead convenors are two highly respected and erudite nationalists, former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno and former Secretary of Finance and the Budget Salvador M. Enriquez.
For the past three decades, we have been operating government on the basis of the 1987 Constitution, forged under reactionary conditions right after the fall of the Marcos’ experience on authoritarianism.
After this long period, I strongly agree that there is need to examine whether first, the political structure it has fostered is working for the benefit of the majority of Filipinos and second, whether the legal framework itself has become the root cause for the exclusionary character of our polity, leading to social and economic conditions where, trite though it may sound, “the poor get poorer while the rich get richer”.
It is a whole working day affair, with a distinguished list of speakers that include former Vice President Tito Guingona Jr., former Senator Nene Pimentel, former UP President Pepe Abueva, Auxiliary Bishop of Manila Broderick Pabillo, economist and writer Calixto Chikiamco, and Rene V. Sarmiento, a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission that drafted the present charter.
Indeed, “it is the system, stupid”, to ape Bill Clinton’s famous remarks about the American economy when he beat the first President Bush that we should be concerned with, and not just the choice of who should lead us after PNoy.
In this regard, I am reminded of what the greatly misunderstood but truly great President Elpidio Quirino, in a time long forgotten, remarked about electoral choice: “It is not about who CAN lead. It is who SHOULD lead”.
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I must apologize, both to the editors and our readers, for that awfully convoluted and long article that saw print last Wednesday, the 15th of July.
I forgot to delete some previously drafted paragraphs which I wrote into my laptop as inputs for a future column, and in haste, sent everything, including redundant issues and unfinished paragraphs, to the Standard desk.
Mea culpa.
