Fix them

Netnet Camomot .

ELECTION 2019’s “senatoriables” Bam Aquino, Imee Marcos, Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, Nancy Binay, Koko Pimentel, Sonny Angara, JV Ejercito, Jinggoy Estrada, Francis Tolentino, Bong Revilla, Bato dela Rosa, Willie Ong, and Bong Go were the 14 candidates that the El Shaddai group chose to vote for.

Among the 14, four didn’t win, namely, Aquino, Ejercito, Estrada, and Ong. Still, the El Shaddai team has proven that the non-El Shaddai Pinoy might have also voted for those in its list.

Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma wrote “The 5 Cs of Good Candidates” (inquirer.net) three months ago, and these were conscience, competence, compassion, companions, and commitment.

Of the five, perhaps only “companions” could evoke a feeling of, Paki-explain, labyu. Well, it’s like that saying, “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”

Now, let’s see if El Shaddai’s preferred “senatoriables” have Ledesma’s 5 Cs.

Of course, “it’s too late, baby now, it’s too late” to ponder on the 5 Cs since Election 2019 is so over, but voter education should be a continuous process, handed down from generation to generation, with those 5 Cs and other guides taught in school and even in offices, households, and barangays, and spread through social media and all other kinds of media, in order to stop the Pinoy from relying on name recall in voting for his favorite candidates. In case you haven’t noticed, celebrity a.k.a. fame or popularity, which leads to name recall, is not the sixth C. In fact, there’s no sixth C.

By the eve of Election Day and even on the day itself, vote-buying and -selling became the norm. The Pinoy should have referred to Ledesma’s 5 Cs, more particularly, conscience, for which the archbishop specifically asked if a candidate had been “transparent and accountable for his/her actions? Are there no charges of corruption in his/her public record?” Looking at El Shaddai’s list of “senatoriables,” surely you’ll find some candidates with “charges of corruption in his/her public record.”

It’s difficult to understand why a hungry voter accepts bribes from a candidate. But when someone with a full tummy also accepts that bribe and proudly announces that fact to the whole world, tsk tsk, asa na man ang hustisya ani?

Well, 73.54 percent of 2,188 respondents who participated in a pre-election survey in Butuan City revealed a willingness to sell their votes. The Father Saturnino Urios University Policy Center conducted the survey on April 15 to 25. With or without that survey, though, there’s the Pinoy who travels to his hometown where he’s a registered voter as he looks forward to receiving bribes from candidates. If that doesn’t make an avid voter out of a Pinoy, I don’t know what will.

The Pinoy who has been voting for many decades is much aware of the guns, goons, and gold that each election season attracts but he usually keeps mum about it, the same way that some Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) officials choose to remain silent despite the inside jobs and anomalies they have allegedly discovered. Jose Rizal is our national hero but his fate is not exactly a popular route for a Pinoy to follow and emulate.

With Philhealth’s overpayments allegedly reaching as much as P154 billion from 2013 to 2018, will an insider finally have a Spider-Man moment—“With great power comes great responsibility”—and find the courage to reveal what he knows?

There are many Philhealth projects and services that could have been funded by the P154 billion. But that amount is presumably being enjoyed now by “ghosts” as additional funds for their businesses. Sarap ng buhay!

Wellmed Dialysis Center’s “ghost kidney treatments” that Philhealth paid for are merely the tip of the iceberg.

If Philhealth’s system remains as confusing as it allegedly is, the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law may also morph into another milking cow for the greedy. But outgoing Sen. JV Ejercito, the principal author and co-sponsor of the UHC as he’s the Senate health committee chair, said, “The UHC just needs to be implemented,” citing that “it will be unfair for the rest to be deprived of Philhealth’s services.”

The UHC Law’s implementation is expected to fix Philhealth, so, good luck na lang.

And good luck na lang also to “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” which has not been attracting good reviews and ticket sales, but it has its moments, such as this dialogue between Jean Grey when she was a little girl (Summer Fontana) and a younger Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy):

Grey: “You think you can fix me.”

Xavier: “Jean, you are not broken.”

Now, imagine this somewhat similar conversation between Philhealth and the UHC Law:

Philhealth: You think you can fix me.

UHC Law: Oh, Philhealth, you are so broken.

Ouch!

With the 18th Congress coming soon to the august halls of the Senate, try to imagine our beloved senators singing, “When you try your best but you don’t succeed / When you get what you want but not what you need… Lights will guide you home / And ignite your bones / And I will try to fix you.”