Our choices are not really ours

If their ambitions find favor and certain particular candidates win the positions they aspire for, our country will become politically unique in a manner by which I cannot even put a name on. Some will find it absurd, others anomalous. Still others will find it sad, and then some embarrassing. Just for the heck of it I will just say it is more fun in the Philippines.

If Bongbong Marcos wins, there will be a brother-sister team straddling the executive and legislative branches of government as his sister Imee Marcos is a sitting senator. If Mark Villar wins, we will have a mother-son tandem in the Senate, where mother Cynthia Villar was elected number one senator in 2019. If Alan Peter Cayetano wins, he will join sister Pia Cayetano, also elected in 2019.

If Jejomar Binay wins, there will also be a father-daughter teamup in the Senate as he joins Nancy Binay who in 2019 made the Magic 12 by the skin of her teeth. She barely edged out JV Ejercito who, if he wins this time around, and provided brother Jinggoy Estrada also wins, will form half of a brother-brother tandem. Two Villars, two Cayetanos, two Binays, and two Ejercitos make eight, a third of the full Senate.

That is not all. What if it is true what the rumors say that Senator Grace Poe is really a daughter of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.? That would make her the sister of Senator Imee Marcos, thereby creating a fifth family tandem in the Senate. Five pairs make 10 out of the 24-man Senate, just three short of a simple majority. They can make or unmake a quorum. They are a formidable bloc unto themselves.

At the outset I said this makes for more fun in the Philippines. And why not? I would rather make the best out of a bad situation than mope and fret about something over which we have no control. In the Philippines, we have absolutely no control over who we elect into office. We do not have a hand on who files for candidacy for whatever position. We are at the mercy of those who think themselves able to lead us.

It is not we the people who asked, urged, pleaded, cajoled, bribed, or wheedled politicians to run for office. It was they themselves, of their own volition, gumption, initiative, and imagination who decided they should run for public office. They were never our choices. But for whatever reason that a just and loving God allowed such a situation, it becomes up to us to make our choices out of those who chose themselves.

That there are credible choices among the self-chosen ones is indeed a remarkable consolation. But there are also perplexing ones, candidates whose ability to even think they can run a country continues to defy all sense of logic, humor, or even prayer and piety. If they were irritations to the skin, they would be pimples upon a pimple, unscratchable itches that deny reach and location.

Whether this setup, where we have no choice over our choices, is a punishment or just God having fun, I do not know. Maybe it is both. And the more I see bishops, priests, and nuns not getting any sleep politicking, the more I think this is so, I will just cite one example. Manny Pacquiao. What on earth is he thinking running for president? But then he claims God talked him into running. Who can argue with that?

In closing, let me indulge myself in a little wishful thinking. Instead of being served a strange and unwanted platter, I long to see the day when, as in a restaurant, I can order what I really want. People should be able to recommend first their choices, and from the top, say 10 choices, a leader is then elected. That would be more in keeping with freedom to choose. But as Pinoys would have it, kapoy og kuti na kaayo na.