Think about it
Coalitions and local skirmishes
By Jun Velasco
POLITICAL coalitions, for good or ill, are becoming fashionable these days. Is this proof that our quest for political understanding and unity has been achieved?
Nope! The more experienced say the “coalition phenomena” are a smokescreen for political convenience and cheap accommodation, which best describes our current political system.
This malpractice will reach extreme proportions because there is no law against it. Everything on its account will be dismissed as “natural”, normal, part of the game, which, if you look hard enough, the democratic ideal.
The proposed charter change was supposed to put an end to this political oddity, but the Supreme Court by a one-vote majority dashed it to pieces.
So, what now?
Maybe, we should save whatever is there to enable us to survive and keep democracy flicker further more.
Everything in our politics now is a clash of personalities won by the popular and most aggressive, who might turn out to be incompetent later.
This coalition, nay, collision of personalities sets back the nation’s quest for what is good for Filipinos.
* * *
It pains us that Vice Governor Oscar Lambino would be eased out in the gubernatorial equation because he lacks logistics.
Wait a minute. We don’t think it’s “logistics” that’s sealing the gubernatorial fate of the vice governor. The game of politics in Pangasinan is deeper than that, going all the way to a web of relationships, including personal and age-old pacts when Oscar was not yet born.
Don’t be surprised if Dr. Louise Jamie Agbayani will be chosen Lakas candidate, who will face Congressman Amado “Spines” Espino, the declared candidate of the Estrella and Cojuangco camps.
Friends are predicting a Pangasinan Third Force that will back Lambino, away from Erap’s checkered group.
But will Oscar gamble his future under a fractured party which in Pangasinan is virtually non existent?
* * *
Wholesale cheating may be prevented in the coming May polls even with the old manual vote-tabulation system. Non-partisan watchers from Europe and the US will be around to observe the political exercise. European aswell as American business corporations that have investment stakes, or are planning to put up branches of their empires worldwide in the country, are worried about political instability if the outcome of the elections will not reflect the true sentiment of the people.
Surely, with foreign watchers who represent business interests monitoring at close range the electoral process, clashing political parties will be extra-careful in circumventing, if ever, the regulations against vote-buying and ballot-tampering.
Neither the administration party nor the coalesced opposition will dare test the capability of the foreign groups in influencing later world opinion should rampant cheating at the polls happen.
* * *
For a long time now, Mayor Benjie Lim has kept everyone in the dark on the congressional scrabble.
He has told us not only once “I will fight Joe.” He was piqued, he says, by the Speaker’s “not making good his word” to enable him complete some projects that because of the caper made him look lousy Dagupeños.
In a paper published by Mortz Ortigoza, Benjie says the Speaker’s pro parliament stance has irked him the most.
We find his two reasons fuzzy, not enough for him to jump into the battle tank and sing war chants against the elder leader who taught him the ropes. He should have said he would do better as a congressman or launch “new politics” and stop his unsavory mouthing that’s making him less credible.
Our forecast: Benjie wants the Speaker to “come across” and allow him to be a re-electionist but with a “rider” -make his son, Brian, his running-mate. The proposition will be surely shot down by the father and son Com. Al and Alvin Fernandez, who believe either can beat Benjie in the Dagupan showdown anytime.
Abangan!
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/think-about-it/)
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