Need: credible nominations

IT’S ridiculous how the president goes around peddling Mar Roxas’s candidacy to various prospects, especially to the lady neophyte of the senate—who is not even a member of his party.

It must be flattering to her to get so much attention from the president and the ruling party, but the fact remains that courting her does not pass for a proper nomination process.

This is an issue that arises in a society with a dysfunctional political party system. If we had real parties, there would be a pool of leaders in them, potential candidates to choose from, the proper objects of a nominating process. Elections would be more orderly.

But what we have is anarchy dominated by self-styled oligarchs who preside over collections of individuals with nothing but greed for power uniting them until a better prospect catches their fancy.
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At the least, any candidate, especially for high office, should get some form of endorsement from his peers in his community or professional circle to enable him or her to run.

A candidate’s community or barangay—neighbors, fellow residents—should vouch for him and his fitness for public office. Running for office shouldn’t be purely a personal decision. After all, political office is a public trust.

In advanced democracies a candidate is required to present, along with his certificate of candidacy, an endorsement by fellow citizens. It’s called a Nominating Petition signed by local voters.

In America, for example, it’s 50 signers for municipal positions, 150 for county or provincial posts, and 1,500 for national. The signatures represent a vote of confidence from fellow citizens—that he is the person he purports to be, that they know him to be qualified, and that he is a credible candidate.
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A procedure like this does away with the problem of having a person with no particular distinction in his community voted-in by other communities that know little or nothing about him.

In other words, it more or less assures that the successful candidate is voted into office by constituents who know his character, competence, or convictions.

Let’s face it, one can build popularity by creating a myth, propagate it with little or no basis in fact, and have public relations specialists hype a candidacy to victory.

With money, organization, and professional image-makers, one can claim to be whatever one wants to be known as and get away with it. It’s a popular game among moneyed trapos, which further bastardizes politics in our society.
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One can wage make-believe campaigns based on virtual reality and win what amounts to a political con game. It’s one way trapos can thumb their nose at their neighbors.

Consider: whose idea was it to have Jackie Enrile run for the Senate? Good thing, enough people in the country knew his notorious background.

Letting such trapos get away with mayhem trashes the interests of their own community and gives them confidence that support from elsewhere will deodorize them.

It is the case with some congressmen and senators who are not wellespected or wellegarded in their own barangay or city but do well in lots of other jurisdictions. If they’re required to be endorsed by people who know them intimately, it wouldn’t be so easy for them to fool other communities. —30—

(Author of books on governance, Manny Valdehuesa is national chairman/convenor of Gising Barangay Movement Inc. valdehuesa@gmail.com)