“We hope our next leader will have what it takes to grapple with our complex problems.”
In the history of our republic, the country has had two parent-and-child presidencies. The first was President Diosdado Macapagal who was followed by his daughter Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The second was President Corazon C. Aquino followed by her son President Benigno Simeon Aquino lll. In earlier times, Sergio Osmena Jr. tried to follow in his father’s footsteps but failed.
For the 2022 presidential election, another son also wants to be like his father. Bongbong Marcos, the youngest child of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, is one of six presidential candidates. There would have been two had Mayor Sara Duterte Carpio not decided to run as mayor again.
Will we be seeing another presidential son winning in next year’s election? It is a tantalizing prospect.
This phenomenon is, of course, not unique to this country. We have seen this happen in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. In Thailand it was two siblings becoming prime ministers. The United States has also had two father-and-son presidencies. In the case of President Benigno Aquino lll, his election was clearly due to the so-called Cory mystique.
There seems to be a tendency of Filipino voters to vote for presidents’ children as shown in two presidential elections. Something is drawing the people to want to vote for the son or daughter which I wish had a simple rational explanation other than nostalgia.
Normally, voters vote for their candidates because of the following reasons; relative competence, physical attributes of the candidate, family choice, candidates belonging to the same ethno-linguistic group, peer pressure and religion. These are the most common. Voting for someone just because he is the son or daughter of a former president is something else.
In the case of BBM who is leading in the current surveys of presidential candidates, it seems that the father is rising from the grave to give the son a huge helping hand. For one, BBM’s mannerisms are reminiscent of the former president. His gestures and speeches seem to remind people of his father which may be strange to some but it shows that after all these years the father has maintained a lot of his die-hard followers. The literature that we read about the late president today were mostly written by the victors, so to speak. There are not too many alternative interpretations of events about the 20 years that the late strongman ruled the country. The current narrative is that everything about martial law was bad and evil.
In a way, BBM is also fighting for his father’s legacy — and the prospective voters are responding. It would be a monumental redemption if BBM goes on to win next year’s presidential elections. It would be much bigger than the redemption of wartime President Jose P. Laurel when voters elected him as senator after being branded as a Japanese collaborator.
Still, the election is months away. A lead in the surveys at this time does not equate to sure victory. A lot of things could still happen. For instance, who among the candidates have a well-oiled campaign machinery to mount an effective winning campaign? Of the six candidates, Senator Ping Lacson has probably the best prepared program of government. Yet, he is fourth or fifth in the surveys. Senator Pacquiao is rating better simply for distributing rice and cash in his sorties. VP Leni Robredo who is the bearer of Cory’s torch and legacy is running third or fourth.
This coming election like any other presidential election is crucial but perhaps more so than the four previous presidential elections. This is because there is clearly a need for the country to return to a semblance of predictability in governance.
In the last five years, our country’s governance was basically dictated by the sheer force of President Duterte’s personality. What is needed now is a government with predictable and stable policies. With a new administration demonstrating more clarity of vision and policy stability, foreign investors will hopefully return with more investments.
In the end, all that we can really hope for is that our next leader will have what it takes to grapple with all the complex problems at hand. The pandemic, South China Sea problem, climate change, burgeoning national debt and many more. We would also hope that our next president is someone who truly believes in our system of government and will work within the system and not always try to put the system under stress just to test the limits of our constitutional government. We want a strong leader but not a strongman.
Lastly, let’s hope that the next president will see the anomaly of always electing a minority president and have the election law amended to require a runoff election for the first and second placer so we’ll have a majority president.
