Elections should make our country better

The FREEMAN’s headline on Wednesday showed it all -- it is final for Vice Governor Agnes Magpale to seek for the governor position while Governor Hilario “JunJun” Davide III has decided to slide down to the position of vice governor because of “political pressure.”

I don’t like to beat around the bush, but if you ask me, the “political pressure” that JunJun Davide is talking about is Rep. Gwen Garcia seeking to run again as governor of Cebu -- nothing else. In truth, in the two terms of JunJun Davide, if he had a lot of projects or things to show to the Cebuano electorate, I doubt if he would step down to run for a lower position.

Davide and Agnes know that as public servants in Cebu, Agnes is the better person because she is approachable and is a doer while Davide is just there as governor. Gads, the poor fellow doesn’t even have a vision for what Cebu ought to be; he is very similar to his former boss, former president PNoy Aquino, who was a total failure. So what, in effect, he is doing by seeking the position of vice governor is merely to upset whatever gains Gwen might get if she wins the governorship.

On her side, Rep. Gwen has taken Maria Daphne Salimbangon as her running mate for the 2019 polls. So in a way, JunJun Davide is thinking that he has a better chance of winning the vice governor race because of name recall. But we’ve already seen that it is better to vote for candidates of the same party. This is one of the serious errors in our electoral system where the two top contenders can belong to other parties. Just look at what Vice President Leni Robredo is doing to embarrass the President.

I’m sure that one of the things that Robredo does is to pray for the demise of the President so she would become president in her own right. So in effect, this same ugly practice could happen in Cebu if the Cebuano electorate would vote for Davide as vice governor. Honestly, I’d rather vote for Daphne Salimbangon and try her out because, at least, we would know that Gwen would have a free hand in mapping our future.

The only way to find out who Daphne is is to let the media interview her and explore her mind. Being the daughter of Rep. Benhur Salimbangon is a plus factor for Daphne, but she has to be known outside the north of Cebu. Now as far as Davide is concerned, I think he should no longer seek any public office. He had two terms and no performance to show. So if he couldn’t shine as governor, does he expect us to see him shine as vice governor? I think not!

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Meanwhile, the Philippine STAR ran a banner story about the 152 individuals who are seeking a Senate seat, only 12 of whom would emerge winners. This goes to show how lucrative a Senate seat has become in this country. It just makes me wonder who among the 152 individuals are truly chosen by God to help come up with a better Philippines. I’d safely say that of this number, we’d be lucky to see great personalities in the Senate. But at this point, I would like to start shuffling through the various names in that Senate list and chose 12 names of people who should be made senators. If we use the social media networks, we might be able to achieve a goal we never thought we could achieve.

One thing we ought to do is come up with criteria as to what we are looking for a senatorial candidate. Let’s start by removing old politicians who have been in the Senate for all these years and look at how rich they have become. Warren Buffet once said, “You cannot be in government and not get rich unless you are corrupt.” So people should have good criteria and check the candidates’ Statements of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs). It would be easy to find out if they made money while in government.

But it is much easier to check the finances of a poor candidate rather than a rich one who may become richer as the years go by as an elective government employee.

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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@ gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www. philstar.com.