Throughout this day around the world, and perhaps most especially here in the Philippines, peoples’ attention would be glued to the US presidential election. Barring a repeat of what happened in Florida in 2000, when so many questions raised about the results delayed the proclamation of the winner, forcing the Supreme Court to declare George Bush winner, the results of today’s election should be known by noon tomorrow.
US election results are usually delivered fast across the continent. We were in Washington, D.C. during the 1976 election and I was so impressed that by 10 p.m. of election night, incumbent Gerald Ford was conceding to Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.
Given the heightened interest among Filipinos in the US election, beginning with the long drawn-out Democratic primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it’s a good idea for US Ambassador Kristie Kenney to organize an election watch party Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at SM Mall of Asia. This early I can already hear the “kantiyawan” [heckling] among Filipinos.
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Even though we cannot vote, everyone here seems to have his or her candidate. At the 31st wedding anniversary of our friends, University of the East law dean Amado Valdez and the former Nelita Natividad, one of the guests, former President Joseph Estrada, said was he rooting for John McCain. He opined that if it proves to be a tight race, the race factor could be decisive.
Last Nov. 1 at the Libingan ng mga Bayani [Heroes’ Cemetery], where we dropped in briefly at the gathering of relatives of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, en route to visiting the graves of my husband’s two brothers and his father, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and I chatted about the US elections. I told him we were rooting for McCain not only because he was a classmate of my late brother-in-law, Adm. Carlito Cunanan, at the US Naval Academy (Carlito met his former Vietnam POW classmate at Clark where he was flown for checkup and treatment in the 1970s), but also because he has the necessary experience to lead America, even though one cannot ignore Obama’s incredible charisma and potential to rally a divided nation in need of healing. The First Gentleman said he liked McCain because his family, beginning with the late CinPac chief, Adm. John McCain Sr., has always been close to Filipinos.
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For the American people it has been a most tiring campaign season that began with the prolonged presidential primaries. It has also broken so many glass ceilings, e.g., the first African-American to run as a major party candidate for president, the first female candidate to seriously compete in the presidential primary, and the oldest candidate to run for president, and pundits are now saying it will be the most analyzed election in contemporary US history.
Obama easily beat both Clinton and McCain to become the US media’s darling and this is attributed to the media’s eagerness to play hand-maiden to the fulfillment of a long-delayed US destiny of electing an Afro-American to the White House. What’s interesting is that while McCain trails Obama by 6 points on the eve of the election, few people care to write him off not just because of the sizable number of undecided voters, but also because of imponderable and unquantifiable factors, such as the race issue and sympathy for the (white) underdog.
In fact, the outcome is so tough to forecast that pundits are going into various scenarios, e.g., if Obama loses, expect a grand fight between Hillary and Sarah Palin in 2012; if he wins, the contest would be between him and Palin. Either way, the controversial Palin will be a force to reckon with from here on.
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Very few Filipinos can equal the background of former environment and natural resources secretary Heherson Alvarez on global warming and climate change, for in his Senate days he authored major legislation on the subject. Hence, in his new role as presidential adviser on these twin issues, he is like fish in water.
Barely weeks into the job, Alvarez already anticipates that the Philippines, as a member of the UN Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), will need its own program of action to be presented at the 14th Session of the Conference of Parties on Climate Change in Poland from Dec. 1 to 12, 2008. Alvarez has proposed—and President Arroyo has approved—the organization and sponsorship of an all-day conference, called the Carbon-Cutting Congress vs. Climate Change (CCCvsCC), on Nov. 24, 2008 at Heroes Hall in Malacañang.
This consultative meeting will bring together 250 institutional and individual stakeholders from various sectors, e.g., business and industry, the communications field, the science and academic community, NGOs and religious and local leaders. The objective is to define a Philippine viewpoint that takes into account our obvious vulnerabilities as an archipelago and the food and security implications of a developing agricultural community. In Alvarez’s view, the CCCvsCC will not only arm the Philippine delegation to the Poland conference with its perspective; it would also prove useful for President Arroyo during the coming summits of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Latin America and of the ASEAN.
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In a build-up to the CCCvsCC, Alvarez exhorted every Filipino to be on a war footing. Philippine society also ought to totally mobilize, he says, as the world moves closer to irreversible damage. He quotes scientists as opining that there are only 42 years left—by 2050, to be exact—for the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent, otherwise the point will be reached when it may no longer be able to mitigate the destructive effects of climate change, such as more destructive typhoons, deadlier floods or desertification. The challenge to every Filipino is to help reduce our carbon footprint, the indicator of how much each of us pollutes Earth.
