The 2022 election has seen candidates begin their campaigns very early. June 2021 already saw even those who had not declared they were running campaigning on social media. There have also been interviews left and right since last year. This year alone, we have been subject to more than five programs focusing on the Presidentiables and this is even before the Comelec-sponsored debate series. But this early, viewer fatigue is setting in because the media outlets have not been creative in their formats. From the one-on-one to the panel interview, live and taped as live, it has been boring to say the least.
Perhaps this also speaks to the quality of the candidates in this election cycle. In 2016, it was Duterte who made the race exciting because of his potshots at his favorite whipping boy, Mar Roxas. Political theater and communications are both natural for Duterte. This is why is campaign sorties drew crowds throughout the country. But with pandemic restrictions in place, candidates are not even present in the studio for the program but only virtually through video conferencing. This takes out much of the entertainment aspect of the political campaign.
The format and quality of the questions asked of the candidates also leave much to be desired. They are repeated over and over again such that even before the official campaign period begins on February 8, voters seem to have an inundated feeling already.
There is also the obsession with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that the opposition focuses on. The tirades against Marcos go on non-stop. There is nothing new to bring up since all of these have been thrown at Marcos since the 2016 election when he ran for Vice-President. The Kakampinks even go to the extent of blaming Marcos for Robredo’s being a far second in the surveys, citing his vast campaign resources and historical revisionism, without recognizing that they are his best campaigners because he lives rent-free in their heads and keeps him in the news cycle 24/7. This is also true for the opposition-aligned media and journalist-activists.
The questions should focus more on the hot-button issues of the economy, public health and education, delving into the specific plans of action of each candidate. We need foreign direct investment but this has always been hindered by the restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution, the poor state of our infrastructure, high power and labor costs. Not one panelist or anchor has asked each candidate for the specifics of his or her economic recovery plan. As it is, candidates have been railing against the Duterte administration for the debt it has incurred during the course of the pandemic but every one of them has also been promising doleouts to the public. The disconnect is very obvious. Only Marcos has said that he is in favor of amending the Constitution.
Public health is about increasing healthcare capacity and the implementation of universal healthcare, particularly the funding. So far, it has been all about Covid-19 but the fact is, the virus is vaccine-resistant. What is the strategy to keep the economy open now that we have more information about the virus and have no need to resort to lockdowns? There should be an equal division of the obligations on the part of the government and the private sector which relies on their employees for manufacturing and consumption. We are still a consumption-driven economy after all.
Education involves addressing the cost of the inability of both private and public educational institutions to conduct face-to-face classes and the falling standards in public educational institutions. This has been a problem even before the pandemic began. We cannot afford to ignore this any longer given it has an effect on the economy with reference to the quality of our labor force, which is also our most viable export, at this point.
The Department of Education claims success in its remote-learning experience when in truth and in fact, it has been an abysmal failure due to the Secretary herself being unable to get the bureaucracy of her department to develop an effective hybrid-learning model. It is safe to say that the parents of the elementary level students are better off after two years of bearing the responsibility of answering the modules their children should have been working on.
The disruption caused by the pandemic has accelerated the pace of innovation in the workplace and some concepts associated with Industry 4.0 have become reality. It is about time that the DepEd focus their thrust on Education 4.0 if only to produce graduates who are future-proof and ready for the demands of the global workplace.
Then there is foreign policy. The President is the chief architect of the country’s foreign policy. It is not as simple as the questions which have been asked of the candidates. China and the US have been facing off in the region and the waters in and around the country have seen increased military activity in terms of patrols and exercises. It is also safe to assume that underwater craft are also operating in preparation for any eventuality.
China and Russia are growing closer and have actually entered into an alliance. Russia also has an interest in the East China Sea against Japan in a territorial dispute and has a base of operations in Vladivostok. There is increased tension between the US, the EU and Russia over Ukraine. We have Filipino workers spread out across continental Europe. The Middle East is also a powder keg between Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran.
Hopefully, these issues will be brought up during the Comelec-sponsored debates. If not, then voters will be on the losing end because these are the issues which have the most impact on their daily lives and whoever wins the Presidency should be capable of addressing these serious issues.
Finally, the format of the interviews and the debates. The KBP Presidential Forum had a panel and time limits to candidate’s answers to questions posed to them. No less than Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddyboy Locsin tweeted a comment addressed to Karen Davila, a former colleague at ABS-CBN. Locsin made a point about the length of time it took for a member of the panel to ask a question and then a follow-up question if the candidate had not consumed the allotted time for the answer.
Locsin deemed it unacceptable that time limits were in place considering that these are candidates for President. The KBP Forum ran for close to three hours even with almost the same questions being asked which had already been asked in the earlier fora or one-on-one interviews conducted by Jessica Soho and Boy Abunda.
This is what happens when every journalist wants to become a celebrity. The interviews which had a panel asking the questions left much to be desired. This was particularly true with DZRH and its “strategic crisis scenario” questions which were not grounded in reality.
Hopefully, the Comelec debates would be more organized and the proper questions asked so the voting public may be enlightened about each of the candidate’s platforms. It may not matter to the diehards but not all voters are and there are those who have not finalized their choices yet. Given the record number of voters for this election, its is very obvious that Filipinos want their voice heard.
Both the Comelec and the candidates owe this to the Filipino people.
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