Noynoy, Gibo, Villar and the new EDSA Revo-lections
Throughout the campaign, former DND Secretary Gilbert (Gibo) Teodoro had been running on the claim that he was the most competent of the Presidential aspirants. Touting top notch education (UP and Harvard) as well as experience in both the Executive and Legislative departments, Gibo’s credentials and overall delivery seem to back him up. The problem is that Gibo had no monopoly to the argument as Senators Manny Villar of the Nacionalista Party and Richard Gordon of Bagumbayan both laid claim to the same altar of competence that Gibo did; Villar anchored on his ability to manage his private enterprises and Gordon supposedly evidenced by what he has done for Olongapo’s Subic Bay.
By contrast, Senator Benigno S. Aquino III ran on seemingly amorphous principles of change and clean government that were the hallmarks of his mother’s legacy. As the results of the latest COMELEC tallies would show however, Noynoy Aquino is riding these principles all the way to Malacanang.
What Gibo, Villar and Dick have failed to recognize is that the Presidential election of 2010 is not really an election in the normal sense of the word but the present day iteration of the same People Power sentiment that fueled the 1986 EDSA revolution. An 80 to 85% voter turnout despite long cues in record high temperatures, the sheer number of volunteer groups eager to protect the vote as well as the zeal with which people scrutinized and guarded the conduct of the election are all evidence of this.
Yellow confetti falls for Noynoy
Critics bemoan the fact that many Filipinos are reduced to electing the “least corrupt” rather than the “most competent” candidate for the highest post in the land. But that assertion erroneously presupposes that the two concepts are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, we cannot deny that it is precisely the sad state of the country which calls for a comparison not of one’s track record of real and hyperbolic accomplishments but a demonstration of what one has NOT done despite being surrounded by power. In this, Noynoy is head and shoulders above everybody else. In the end, Noynoy has shown by his previous conduct that he is the most competent to wield the awful powers of the President by showing its grandest manifestation — that of RESTRAINT.
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