Who paid the political ad of this senatoriable?
A poster that I saw in a bookstore recently captured my imagination, rather, confused my thought. It had the images of America's four great leaders carved unto Mt. Rushmore. Somewhere in an obscure corner of the poster was written the message: "Great things come from small beginnings."
I must have stood in front of the poster for a longer period than most men would require when suddenly a fellow senior citizen tapped my shoulder. "Attorney Piramide?" I was sure it was his attempt to confirm my identity that I gladly answered with a simple "Hi, good afternoon sir" because I could not place a name to his face.
It was a fleeting incident. After he gave me a firm handshake, the creases on his face seemed to disappear. I could surmise what was in his mind that showed in the radiance of his smile, but I would rather keep it to myself. Before I could apologize for missing his name, the gentleman proceeded to point to the saying that was written on the poster and said "huge amounts of corruption, Attorney, also start with petty bribery." Then he continued his slow and careful walk without waiting for my rejoinder and all the more it told heavily on my imagination.
True to the off tangent nature of this column, let me fast forward to yesterday morning. While watching a morning news program on TV, there flashed an unmistakable election propaganda material. Oh, there was more than one spot I noticed. With that length of advertisement exposure and aired on a prime time, the expense must be huge.
That advertisement involved a son of a senator whose record in the senate is humiliating. This lawmaker (I hate to use this word because the official was never a lawmaker in every sense of the word!) said, not too long ago, that he was retiring from politics but he would push his son to take his place. I assumed that the advertisement was a first step in that political direction.
A slot in the senate, if achieved by this aspiring political heir, is a great thing but the advertisement the politician used was certainly not a small beginning. Well, we need to ask the questions. Was the ad paid from the personal funds of the senator's son? Our little understanding of the economics of prime time ad tells us that the amount for such airing is big. We have not come across the Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net worth of this politician so we might not really know his financial status. We can only assume that he is moneyed because no one would throw away that kind of fund if he were economically starving.
It seemed from the advertisement that the politician was carrying the voice of a government agency. Was it Tourism? By what authority did he represent the Department of Tourism? It is important to ask this question because if that was the case, it was the Department of Tourism, not the personal advertiser, who paid the advertising cost. While I could not see any reason for that kind of paid advertisement, may I know how much has been set aside and paid by the government for a purely personal gain of a son of a senator?
More than the amount paid for the ad, let me go deeper into the morality of the placing the advertisement. If you saw it as I did, you must have discerned that the person in focus would want to claim authorship of whatever successful tourism program the department launched. He spoke as if it was his design that allowed the tourism department to achieve for our country desired target ends. Without meaning to be discourteous, may I ask if he was truthful in his subliminal message?