General Admission
Happy race, funny laws
By Al S. Mendoza
WE are a happy race.
Our tempers are under check most of the time.
Did it not take us nearly 400 years before we allowed our blood to boil, in the process tearing up our cedulas led by Andres Bonifacio to spark the Philippine Revolution in 1896?
Did it not take us nearly 20 years before we decided we’ve had enough of the Marcos Dictatorship, kicking Marcos out of Malacanang in the now-famous 1986 People Power at Edsa?
And, yes, did it not take us decades before we would see in 2012 the Executive and Legislative branches of government banding together to remove a Chief Justice that didn’t consider a “midnight appointment” a sin, among several sins pinned on him?
Ah, the list can be that long.
Take our elections, for example.
In May 2013, we will elect 12 of the 37 aspirants for senators.
We are familiar mainly with the 12 bets from the Liberal Party and the 9 from UNA (United Nationalist Alliance). The other 16, we don’t know them from Adam.
The law allows a party, such as UNA, to field in 12 candidates.
But UNA “broke” the law by fielding in only 9 bets, justifying it by saying LP’s 3 other aspirants are their “guest candidates.”
For failing to assemble a complete slate of 12 candidates, UNA is thus a weak party.
It’s like hearing UNA say: “Of our population of 90 million people, we only found 9 as qualified to run.”
Shocking, to say the least.
UNA might as well have said: “But wait. After a careful study of LP’s lineup, we found out that three of them are acceptable to us and, thus, we have adopted the three as guest candidates to complete our 12-man lineup.”
Got the drift?
If UNA isn’t making a mockery of election laws, then it won’t rain cats and dogs anymore in Mangatarem in the coming rainy season.
And because the three “borrowed” candidates of UNA aren’t objecting to being labeled as an opportunist, if not downright unprincipled, then God won’t make sweet mangoes anymore in San Carlos.
We are a happy lot that’s why we enjoy, we laugh, at jokes cracked by candidates in their campaign speeches.
The ones that make us roll in stitches, laugh to our heart’s content, they are the ones worth voting for?
Never mind that they are mostly a bunch of fakes, making a fool of the people by acting sickeningly foolish on stage during late-night sorties.
And look at the Comelec. Isn’t it the No. 1 trainer of certified clowns masquerading as soon-to-be-dedicated public servants?
With the sheer number of “don’t’s” that the Comelec has listed during the campaign period, I wonder why we hold elections at all.
By the time the May election is over, there would be more election laws broken than candidates chosen.
On, Tio Kulas, only in Pinas.
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