Agonizing About Noynoy

In the past several Presidential elections, I have always voted for a loser, to a point that some friends joked about the fact that I am not a very good political scientist, considering that I should know better whom to vote for using my own "objective" assessment of the political landscape.

My defense was that I am not an ordinary political scientist, considering that I study the ordinary and the everyday, and not the grand political processes associated with the state. My expertise lies in discerning the political out of Darna and Survivor Philippines, and not in divining political futures from grand scripts and discourses. And even if I could, I would never vote for someone just because she or he is going to win. The exercise of suffrage is too sacred for me to use to mortgage my principles in exchange for the feeling of having been on the winning side. I derive comfort from the fact that what most of recent history have told us is that the winning side is oftentimes also the wrong side.

This time, however, my losing streak may just end with the eventual vote I may cast with Noynoy.

But things have to be brought to careful attention, things that lead me into an agonizing self-reflection. The operative word here is "may," implying that I am not yet 100 percent certain, not only of my vote for him, but also of his chances of winning.

One source of my personal agony is the nagging thought that despite the fact that I may eventually be on the winning side, then why is it that I am not that ecstatic of the possibility? I am bothered by the fact that I still have doubts.

A friend recently told me that Noynoy is the best choice to lead the country into a moral recovery, considering that moral uprightness is in his genes. This is exactly what makes me uncomfortable, for indeed while there is no doubt to the moral force that characterized the union of Ninoy and Cory, and the dominant presence of faith in the worldview of the latter, buying the genetic argument poses a serious risk when one looks at what happened to Kris.

Seriously, however, I am very much uncomfortable putting my hope for the country's recovery in the hands of a family name just because of its political pedigree. This is tantamount to an act of legitimizing a fated form of dynasty, where one clan is almost bestowed the divine right to rule. What would be next? That any Aquino is good, and that all Marcoses are bad? Well, aside from Kris, there was the dancing queen Teresa Aquino-Oreta who sided with Erap with her notorious dance moves in the impeachment hearings in the Senate to prove that the genetic argument is extremely flawed. Kidding aside, what if it turns out that the elements of Kris and Tessie running in the blood of Noynoy might just show up?

Doubts like these emerge simply because we really don't know Noynoy as himself that much. Before the death of his mother, he was just an average performing legislator who simply capitalized on his surname to win a seat in the House and later in the Senate. Noynoy has to really try harder to project himself now as not just the son of Ninoy and Cory, and begin to chart for himself a political narrative which is different from, even as equally if not more promising and compelling than, his parents'. And here, it seems he is not doing very well, considering that his trajectory is in the same manner as her mother's. A death catapulted him to take on a presidential bearing like his mother; he evinces reluctance in the same way Cory was reluctant before; he went to the South on a retreat to reflect like what Cory did. In this process of retracing the path which his mother took, whether deliberately or not, he began to acquire an umbra of religiousity the public has never seen him to have. This may be good to some, but for me it simply betrays the lack of originality and authenticity. Personally, I have always been suspicious of candidates who appropriate religion in building their images and increasing their political stocks. This is why I will never vote for Fr. Ed Panlilio, Bro. Eddie and Bro. Mike.

I have a feeling that this coming elections will be fought not in the domain of memories, but in the landscape of the future. May 2010 may not be that far in time from now, but in a political campaign, a week could be a century. Many things could happen. As the Cory magic wanes, Noynoy will begin to be scrutinized not for what his bloodline would imply, or what his parents have bequeathed him at the time of his birth and at the times of their deaths. He will, by his own terms and record, now be deconstructed, evaluated, weighed, rated, scored, attacked, interrogated, and engaged by an increasingly critical and discerning public, and by competitors who will undoubtedly deploy all tactics, from fair to dirty, at and against him. Among others, he will be put to task regarding his position on agrarian reform. He could not even use the C5 controversy against Villar for the simple reason that he is part of the Senate that allowed such insertions when the budget was first deliberated.

As for me, I will continue to hope that he will do his best. I hope he can begin to be his own person. I hope he can escape from his elitist image and penetrate the CDE crowd to compete with Villar, Erap and Noli. I hope that while using his pedigree and his parents' moral force as an inspiration, that he will now chart a forward looking course of not capitalizing on their deaths and what they could have done, but on embarking on a journey about our future lives, his plans and what could be accomplished, as a way to wing it through the youth vote for which he will compete against Villar and Chiz

I am hoping he will do this so that when the last ballot has been scanned in May 2010, hopefully in the cleanest election we will ever have, that I could finally say that at last, I have voted for the winner, and after six years, I can also proudly say that my winning side was also the right side of our history.