Let us be guided by history in choosing a vice president

History is a great teacher. The only sad part of the kind of teaching we get is that, sometimes, the lessons we learn from historical accounts tell us why we did some things differently than we should have. In other words, from the pages of history, we realize, albeit belatedly, the reasons for some of our failures in pursuing what should have been the correct thing to do.

Let us take the case of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. When our countrymen began to understand the dire implications of "Hello Garci", we thought of abruptly ending her presidency. In our mind, her palpable misuse of presidential powers to thwart the will of the people was ground enough to discontinue her rule. Then, our mass actions started to grow bigger each day and our collective voices demanding that she leave Malacañang increased in irreversible continuum.

But, as our indignation heightened, there was something that served as our drag. We could not take the final step to oust her totally from power because we suddenly realized that our alternative for leadership was, at least, questionable. A future leadership, possibly darker than that which we were poised to put an end, restrained us. We knew that by constitutional succession, the vice president would take over a resigned president. Malacañang could not and should not be left untended, even for a nano-second. There must be immediate transition of power.

The looming successor however, did not seem to possess the kind of preparation and the set of qualities needed to improve on a disgraced leadership. There was no argument that the president whom we perceived as corrupt, could still be better than a probably mindless and bungling incompetent. That thought saved her from immediate damnation. We had to endure with her because the successor could prove dangerously wrong.

So, that is a historical teaching we have to account for as we face the task of selecting a vice president in the May 2016 elections. The second highest ranking officer of the republic may be just, indeed, be, a spare tire, so to speak, but he must be ready to assume presidential power in constitutionally outlined circumstances.

I am quite happy that the vice presidential hopefuls, I mean those who have announced their intention to run for the office this coming election, are with sufficient academic credentials, appear to be critically prepared and arguably competent to become president in case of need.

In all modesty and with no intention to cast aspersion on the integrity of the then Vice President Noli de Castro, I can assert that anyone of Senators Cayetano, Escudero, Honasan, Marcos and Trillanes, and Congresswoman Robredo, can be more capable and a much better vice president compared to the one we had when Macapagal-Arroyo was our president. All of these hopefuls have shown, in many legislative deliberations, that they are possessed with a thorough understanding of how government operates. It is rather easy, for us, to accept that they can very well steer our nation's ship if and when the times demand for their ascendancy to presidential power as when a serious physical incapacity visits the president or when our country's chief executive does an unacceptably wrongful judgment call demanding his impeachment.

Oh yes, whoever gets elected as the vice president of Jejomar Binay or Grace Poe-Llamanzares, or Manuel "Mar" Roxas III or Miriam Defensor-Santiago, we can be confident that the next second in the nation's command can very well be the commander in chief. Historically speaking, unlike the time of Macapagal-Arroyo when we seemed to doubt the competence of her vice president such that we could not push for her resignation or impeachment, the current crop of vice presidential aspirants is a tested lot. Their leadership is unquestionable.

So, the focus that we all voting citizens need to take is not on the competence of the candidates for vice president. That is a given. Still, we have to visit our history to come up with the correct choice. Let us study the historical records of our current breed of vice presidential candidates to determine our future because he who does not look back deep into the past cannot reach far forward into the future.