‘Anong gusto mong maging?’

Netnet Camomot .

SUMMER was perfect for Holy Week. It was humid and hot. Some places in Pinas with blackouts and no water. Talk of penitence.

But political candidates can’t waste time focusing on the heat. Instead, they have to ignore the heat so they can continue their house-to-house visits, campaign sorties and rallies.

Had the Commission on Elections allowed them to campaign on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, they would have gladly done so—by going to churches and Stations of the Cross where they could distribute free bottles of water, fans, hats, face towels, and menthol candies. That’s what you call strategy: Strategy / When the feeling’s gone and you can’t go on / It’s strategy.

Oops! The correct lyric is tragedy, not strategy.

If All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day were also within the campaign period, political candidates would have visited cemeteries and memorial parks to distribute free candles and flowers.

I once saw a candidate visit a wake with her campaign vest on. Tsk tsk. She should have been more politically correct with her tragedy, er, strategy. FYI: she lost.

There’s the sincere candidate, and there’s the candidate whose talent is limited to pa-cute, hoping his charm is enough for the madlang pehpohl whose hands he’s shaking, after which he will hide in his car and use a million wipes and bottles of alcohol to remove germs off his hands. But that’s understandable. The physical contact could trigger germs to go forth and spread to other hands.

One thing I learned about hand washing is to sing “Happy Birthday” twice—that’s the length of time required to ensure your hands are thoroughly clean.

So, if you hear and see a candidate singing “Happy Birthday” while inside a rest room, it’s not heartily dedicated to a potential voter who happens to be celebrating his birthday that day. The candidate is simply washing his hands after all the handshaking.

Candidates have to take good care of their health, otherwise, they lose precious hours that could have been invested on campaigning. Thus, the hand washing, wipes, and alcohol. They’re not maarte; they’re health-conscious.

The madlang pehpohl have to wonder how candidates are able to maintain their joie de vivre throughout the campaign period. It’s not easy to be smiling all the time but a smile is what candidates can miraculously wear for as long as there’s a potential voter near them. Their real face reappears only after leaving the campaign venue, once they’re with family, friends, and their team. That’s when their real character is revealed, the one that’s carefully hidden in the presence of potential voters.

A child is asked, Anong gusto mong maging? For the politician, the question should be, What legacy do you want to leave behind?

There are places in Pinas that have a bridge with no highway to bridge, or a bridge in an area that doesn’t need a bridge, so, that it’s not even a “bridge over troubled water” but a bridge over no water.

I wonder if the politicians behind these bridges have a conscience.

I wonder how many cars, houses, jewelry, and luxury bags they have acquired out of the commissions earned from the bridges.

I wonder if they’re still the incumbent politicians in their hometowns, and if they’re running again this year.

I wonder how many more bridges to nowhere they will build if they win again on May 13.

And now you know why I’m Wonder Woman. But I’d rather be Darna.

The grafting and corrupting politician can rob and sell Pinas until it morphs into a province of some other country, but it won’t remain that way if the Pinoy becomes educated, informed, and aware of the real issues which the madlang pehpohl have no time to be concerned with as they try to survive daily.

That’s why the campaign rally is their entertainment—they want to sing, dance, laugh, they long for a momentary relief from reality.

Once the campaign rally is over, both candidates and potential voters go back to their own homes to rest, and to wake up the morning after for another round of survival. One step at a time, one day at a time. But with the candidate presumably much better off financially than the ordinary mortal whose vote he’s trying to buy. Oops!