Template for the final choice

As election day draws near, the people are gradually awakening. The days of the trolls and revisionists of history are numbered. The forces of darkness have been using all tricks and chicanery to hoodwink the people and mislead them with fake news. The pink revolution is going to inundate the trolls away.

Knowing fully well that we will choose the next head of state and head of government, and mindful that we are going to select the next commander-in chief of all armed forces, the architect of Philippine foreign policies, the one who will appoint justices, ambassadors, and generals, and one who has control over all executive departments and supervision over all local government units, we should exercise extraordinary diligence in making our crucial choice. We should always remember that we are not hiring a clerk or a messenger. Our vote is for the one who will lead 111 million Filipinos, including about 10 million who are currently in 200 other countries all over the world,

We should entrust to him or her the responsibility to safeguard the security of no less than 7,107 islands, our vast territorial waters around, between, and connecting all terrestrial territories, including those in the West Philippine Sea. We should not elect blindly and neither should we allow ourselves to be misled by revisionists of history and manufacturers of fake news coming from troll farms and paid political drumbeaters. We are choosing a national leader who shall make crucial decisions that can determine the destiny and future of the whole nation, a leader who will have to appear before the United Nations or speak before the joint session of the US Congress, negotiate treaties, and international conventions with global powers and their leaders.

We should choose a leader who is not afraid of other world leaders, including America's Joe Biden, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and China's Xi Jinping. Thus we shall not choose one who is banned entry into the United States, or one who has been called by his own father as lacking in character, tagged by President Duterte as a weak leader, and called by Vice President Leni as "sinungaling" and is nowhere to be found during debates, disasters, and calamities. We should then choose a decent and honorable person, one we can all respect and be proud of as our model of impeccable virtues and values. We should choose a person who has integrity as shown by the honesty of his dealings, the integrity of his records, and the transparency of his transactions.

We should also choose one who is hardworking with concrete accomplishments in the positions he occupied, one who has a vision for the alleviation of poverty and improvement of the quality of life of all Filipinos, especially the marginalized sectors of jobless, homeless, and hopeless people. To summarize, my templates are five-fold; competence, character, credentials, conscientiousness, and compassion. We need a leader who knows the problems and has the competencies with which to solve them. We should insist on a leader whose character is beyond reproach, no drug issue, no tax problem, no question on work ethic, and has the courage to face all challenges with confidence and firmness.

We choose one who is conscientious and will focus on the work to be done, hands on deck, always visible, and really working hard and doing his best. Lastly, that leader should be compassionate, caring, and always translating his care and concern for the best interest and welfare of the people. We should reject political dynasties and those supported by political has-beens who plundered the nation's coffers and enriched themselves while in power. We should reject those who cheated in elections and betrayed the trust of the Filipino people. We are not choosing a mere underling or subaltern. We are anointing the highest official of the land. And we demand the best of them all, the top of the heap, the cream of the crop, the best of the best. Yes, we will not settle for shady characters and those who cloak themselves in sweet promises.

We should reject those who evade the rule of law, we should shun political butterflies. We should not choose one who has been linked to extrajudicial killings. We should neither opt for the extreme left nor the extreme right. We should choose the best and by this time, we all know who she is. There is no other one. The last man standing will be a woman.