Bedlam

It is easier, it seems, to file a certificate of candidacy for the highest post in the land than to get to work through Edsa’s unforgiving tangle.

When the gates opened, a horde of presidential wannabes stormed through. They came in all shapes and sizes, some of them completely outlandish and some of them appearing to be in dire need of institutional confinement.

A wit once said one must be completely crazy to want to be president of this tormented republic. Some of those obviously crazy quickly applied for the job.

The requirements are fairly simple: one must be a natural-born Filipino citizen, 40 years of age and able to read and write. The requirements to be a busboy or a security guard are infinitely more complex.

By the time the period for the filing of candidacies ends this Friday, we could have a hundred natural-born Filipinos and one whose citizenship is being questioned listed as candidates for president. The Comelec says its job is merely “ministerial.”

The poll body is duty-bound to duly receive all certificates of candidacies.  Later, by some divination, they must weed out most of the aspirants and leave only a few in the list.

There is no law that specifies the maximum number of candidates nor a procedure required to test their sanity. The Comelec criterion is pretty mundane. The polls body can accredit only such number of names that can feasibly fit what is already the longest electoral ballot in the world without need for the voters to use a microscope.

The huge turnout of candidates is a bit unexpected. Presidential spokesman Sonny Coloma says this attests to the dynamism of our democracy. He is as usual wrong.

That horde of candidates storming Comelec’s gates tells us our constitutional order is very sick. Our party system is broken. It could not fulfill the function of filtering the political class.

Our electoral democracy is dysfunctional. Instead of aggregating constituencies, our electoral democracy produces bedlam. Each candidate, loyal to no party, follows his own drummer – wherever that drummer may lead him.

Imaginably, we have an electoral system that may produce more candidates than voters. Even in previous elections, we must have captured the world record for the most number of candidates per capita.

We have an electoral system running on very short cycles and allows the man on horseback to arrive even without a horse. One might celebrate the wide array of choices available to our voters. But on closer examination of the choices, maybe we should not celebrate.

Airports

Andrew Acquaah-Harrison is a fascinating man. He grew up loving airports and spent his professional life helping manage some of the busiest airports in the world.

Andrew and airports make for a passionate love affair. Each day, it seems, he wakes up with a single thought: how to make air facilities better for the passengers who use them. Away from an air facility, he would be fish out of water.

If the Mactan airport looks a lot better today and functions with greater efficiency, credit that to Andrew and his team. The man is into every aspect of the terminal: the lighting, the layout, the toilets.

He found the right company to refurbish the cracked marble flooring. He found the right lights to make the place bright without the glare. Part of each day, he hangs out with the janitors and security guards and the passengers, trying to learn a detail he might improve on.

He knows about the economics of airports, too. More than anyone I have met, he knows that his company will survive only if air traffic flourishes. Air traffic will flourish only if the city the airport serves improves as a destination and business in general booms.

Therefore, he is not only managing air terminals. He is helping negotiate with airline for more flights. He dabbles in tourism promotions and keeps a keen eye on emerging tourist markets. If he had his way and government was more open minded about ceding more airport operations to private investors, he would build that second runway Cebu direly needs.

Andrew Acquaah-Harrison was brought in last year by the GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. to advise the management team on airport operations. The Mactan-Cebu terminal was handed over to this company last year as a result of an intensely competitive bidding exercise.

GMR-Megawide is building a new state-of-the-art terminal beside the existing one. Construction was held back because the DOTC, as usual, did not coordinate with the Philippine Air Force for the relocation of some of their facilities from the site of the new terminal.

The new terminal is expected to be completed in 2018 – a little late (thanks to the DOTC) but also an impressive structure with enough provision for expansion as air traffic grows according to forecast. It will have all the latest technology used by the most advanced airports abroad. Some of those technologies are, in fact, starting to make an appearance in the old terminal.

This will be the jewel of Philippine airports, a showcase for what good privatization might do. It will stand in sharp contrast to the government-run Manila International Airport whose general-manager is a political appointee, a presidential crony said to spend more time on the firing range with his boss than attending to the passengers.

There are no leaking ceilings and flooded floors at the Mactan-Cebu airport, and no stranded passengers. The Manila airport manager might find it worthwhile to see the Mactan facility for himself and enjoy a briefing from Andrew on what airports are really all about.