The Final Debate
THE last leg of the Presidential debates will be held in Luzon on April 24, 2016 more particularly at the University of Pangasinan.
This is the final opportunity for the voters in the country to study, assess, evaluate and understand the six presidential candidates one of whom will be voted upon to lead the country for the next six years.
It is evident that in the past two presidential debates there were a lot of things that went wrong, from the type of questions propounded the candidates, the response time given to them to explain their side and answer the questions, and the occurrence of personal attacks against the personalities of some of the candidates instead of objectively addressing the issues raised in the debate.
In this final leg of the presidential debate all previous errors and mishaps should not be repeated and the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) must see to it that only those relevant to the debate must be ventilated to properly inform the people and the voters.
As far as issues are concerned the candidates must be put to task in defending their positions and previous statements regarding a certain national concern. One problem that continues to hound the country is the proliferation and apparent wanton distribution of illegal drugs such as shabu right down to the barangay level. It has already become an alarming trend that the authorities and perhaps even the public are no longer surprised when raids and seizure of hundreds of millions pesos worth of shabu are put in the headlines. It would seem as if shabu has become so rampant in its presence that it is already ordinary and common place to learn of authorities confiscating kilos and kilos of the il- legal drug and with mostly Chinese national involved in the illegal drug trade.
Something must be done about this and the presidential candidates must be asked directly whether they support harsh and stringent measures to finally eradicate this drug menace from society.
One question that may need to be reiterated to the candidates is whether they would favor bringing back the death penalty for drug offenders, particularly the so called foreign drug lords, most of whom are now enjoying the hospitality of the various prisons in the country and where they apparently continue to conduct and dispense their nefarious trade. While it may not immediately put a stop to the illegal drugs trade the death penalty may yet have a sobering effect to those who would insist on continuing their despicable trade of selling shabu since being terminated with finality will deprive them the opportunity of enjoying the billions they have illegally earned. Of course the candidates would also be asked whether they favor the return of the death penalty for the drug lords only or if they would want to expand the extreme punishment to other heinous crimes such as massacres and kidnap for ransom considering that these types of crimes have also become so widespread in the archipelago.
Even with just this one question the voters will already be enlightened as to how the candidates will explain and support their views and position on the matter and can even serve as the deciding factor whether a particular candidate is really qualified and up to the challenge of leading the nation given that peace and order is one of the top priorities in governance and can spell the difference between a stable country from a chaotic one.