Close scrutiny

A foreign visitor was amazed at how invested we Pinoys are in our Miss Universe contestant, and how we scrutinize every aspect of her being and how she performs in the pageant events. We know her mixed Filipino (Ilongga)-Indian heritage, winged costume weighed 21 kilos, that she didn’t wear the headdress, that her yellow gown completed the colors of the Philippine flag after Pia Wurtzbach’s blue and Catriona Gray’s red gowns, indicating she was on track for the crown.

Would that we would scrutinize our candidates for government elective posts just as carefully! Scrutinize their track records, what they’ve actually done when they were elected to office vs what they promised when they were campaigning (hold them to their promises, joke or not!), check if they have vested or conflicts of interest with regards to the positions they are running for…

It’s easier said than done, I know. Despite freedom of information and calls for transparency, there are curtains and veils and barriers galore to ordinary citizens like us getting the real score on the candidates. Their campaign paraphernalia will of course list only the good things about them.

Social media can lift the curtains a bit, since very little remains a secret in this day of FB and Twitter and IG and chat groups. But then one must contend with fake news, a very real and present danger in the world of social media.

The burden is thus on us citizens to be vigilant, to exercise discernment and do our part to research and scrutinize the candidates so that we do not waste our precious votes on charlatans and shysters. – Ronni M. Warner, Parañaque City