Now that the numerous disqualification cases filed against Senator Grace Poe, an independent candidate for president in the May 2016 elections, have been submitted for resolution by the Supreme Court, other issues relating to whether or not she should be elected president in the first place are ripe for discussion.
In all her campaign advertisements, Poe has been projecting a pro-people image which she enhances with populist promises and motherhood statements. Many of her campaign pledges even sound like English-language versions of the campaign promises of two of her four rivals—Manuel “Mar” Roxas and Vice President Jejomar Binay.
Last year, an organization called ALL4GP Movement published a series of half-page newspaper advertisements featuring Poe in casual attire. Behind Poe’s photograph is a faint image of her late father, box office king Fernando Poe Jr. It was obviously a subliminal appeal to the elder Poe’s fans, considering that FPJ is not even mentioned, much less identified in the advertisement.
Again, in her campaign advertisements, and in many of her public appearances, Poe makes it a point to be in casual attire, apparently to give the impression that she is no different from the ordinary Filipino. This charade is hollow because, unlike Poe, the ordinary Filipino does not have an American spouse, and does not have children who proudly announce in cyberspace their latest acquisition of expensive footwear, and of the type many Filipino youngsters cannot afford to buy.
At the televised presidential debate held at Cagayan de Oro City last month, Poe virtually admitted that compared to her rivals in the presidential race, she has the least experience in public office. After doing so, Poe came out with a novel theory that competence in high public office is not determined by the length on one’s stay in public office.
Poe’s theory has no foundation in reality. Competence in high public office is acquired mainly through experience in lower public office. In fact, the higher the public office gets, the more experience is required from the candidate. As a journalist in another newspaper observed, a second lieutenant cannot become Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff overnight. He must learn the ropes, so to speak, slowly but surely, before he can reach star rank. Moreover, an inexperienced public official is less likely to succeed, compared to an experienced one. This principle holds true for both public office and private enterprise.
At the same debate, Poe also equated the presidency to running a household, and insisted that to be a competent president, it is enough that one has the perspective of a mother who attends to the needs and concerns of her family.
Good grief! Poe has no basis for equating the presidency with a common household. Indeed, households are often difficult to manage, and many homemakers deserve to be commended for their efforts which, unfortunately, are often taken for granted. Unlike the presidency of the country, however, a household manager does not have to address complicated national problems like communist insurgency, separatist movements, military adventurism, corruption, and bureaucratic incompetence. Ironically, Poe’s sweeping statement equating the presidency with a common household only underscores her woeful lack of sufficient understanding about the complex responsibilities of the President of the Philippines.
By the end of this month, Poe shall have been in public service for less than six years. Three were spent as the chief government censor of cinema and television, and two and three quarters were spent as a senator.
As erstwhile national censor, Poe did nothing outstanding to distinguish her tenure from those of her predecessors. The same may be said of Poe’s half-term in the Senate, where she was supposed to focus on the proposed Freedom of Information law, but where nothing concrete was realized. Thus, even if Poe correctly theorized that longevity in public service is not a correct barometer of competence in public office, Poe’s very brief stint in government service leaves much to be desired. Inevitably, therefore, Poe must come to terms with the reality that, despite her emotional protestations to the contrary, her track record in public service is too minimal for someone eyeing the highest office in the land.
Somebody should remind Poe that when she ran for senator back in 2013, she was seeking an office that had a fixed, six-year term. During her senatorial campaign, Poe never told the voters anything about any plan on her part to run for president three years hence, or halfway through her six-year term as senator. Thus, when the voters installed Poe to the Senate in 2013, it was on the understanding that she will serve a full six-year term as senator. Since Poe’s election to the Senate is a covenant with the people, then her stay in the Senate for a period short of the contracted six years service is a breach on her part of that sacred covenant.
It will be argued by Poe’s camp that since the same voters who installed Poe to the Senate now want her to run for president, there will be no breach of her 2013 covenant with the people. That is, of course, pure speculation. A voter who, in 2013, wanted Poe to serve in the Senate is not necessarily a voter who, in 2016, will want Poe to serve as president. Her having topped the 2013 senatorial polls is beside the point. One seat out of the 24 in the Senate, and the presidency of the country, are two distinct, incompatible offices. Clearly, public confidence in a candidate for a seat in the Senate will not always translate to public confidence in the same candidate for a higher office.
Poe’s current run for the presidency is not only a breach of her 2013 covenant with the people; it also suggests that if she is president, she will have no second thoughts about disavowing any of her promises made in the course of her ongoing presidential campaign.
