Harvey Keh had some very interesting things to say in a contribution to the Philippine Daily Inquirer last weekend.

He has been doing the rounds of Luzon of late, and wonders why Ed Panlilio, Grace Padaca and Jesse Robredo do not contest the presidency. Their audiences, students and young folk, are certainly enthusiastic about the idea. They are dismayed by the current lot of “presidentiables” and would like nothing better than to see any one of the three in their stead.

Of course, the usual pundits laugh at the idea. At the very least, they say, you need P2 billion to run a presidential campaign. Panlilio, Padaca and Robredo themselves find the idea amusing, saying they have neither the resources nor the renown to catapult them all the way to the Palace by the Pasig.

Still, Keh wonders why it isn’t possible. He still believes the people want something better, and can always do a People Power in elections the way they did in Pampanga province. There are the overseas Filipinos who cannot possibly approve of the way things are going in their home country and can always chip in to field the better choice. And the majority of the voting population is young, and can always be counted upon to do the idealistic thing.

I share these sentiments completely and would like to add to the perspective a bit more. Indeed bring a little more focus by saying right here right now that if Panlilio decides to run for president, he can count on my vote. Hell, he can count on my unstinting support.

My reasons for it are these:

One, true enough you’ve also got to have a sense of realism in politics. Of the three, Panlilio is the one who has been most thrust in the public eye because of the mini-People Power the Kapampangans mounted in the last elections and because of the mega-Gangster Power his opponents, on Malacañang’s instance, mounted against him after he won. Filipinos are not without a sense of justice, particularly of the poetic kind. He is the one public official Malacañang sought desperately to get rid of. Therefore, by the law of opposites, which says that dark hates light and thieves hate honest men, he is the one public official who most deserves to be in Malacañang.

If you’re Christian, you can always say the exalted shall be humbled and the humble exalted. If you’re sane, you can always make it come true.

Two, you’ve got to have a sense of idealism to go with the realism too. Or else just settle for the “trapo” [traditional politico; literally, dirt rag]. The realism doesn’t preclude the idealism. I personally don’t think the money or resources present a crippling obstacle. I’m a firm believer in that line from “Field of Dreams” that says, “If you build it, they will come.”

That is not as quixotic as it sounds. It comes from the proposition, one repeatedly borne out in life: that an idea whose time has come will always get people to gravitate around it. Or more basically, will demand to be born and bring people like the Three Kings to come to it bearing gifts. Panlilio, like Cory and like Obama, is an idea whose time has come. In fact, he’s well past due. If you build it, they will come. If you run Panlilio, they will come. The folk that mounted People Power in Pampanga, the overseas Filipinos who will pitch in here and there, the voters (majority of whom are the youth) will vote for what is good and true: They will come.

Three, I will never tire of saying that the elections next year — they take place at all — offer the enormous potential of being a battle between Good and Evil. In the same way the snap elections in February 1986 were a battle between Good and Evil, in the same way that the US elections last year were a battle between Good and Evil. The situation in the country today, not unlike in those times, makes the elections more than a purely political exercise, it makes them a life-and-death moral choice.

That was what thrust Cory to the forefront of the Filipino mind, making her rise heads and shoulders above Doy Laurel and the other wannabes who wanted to challenge Ferdinand Marcos. That was what thrust Obama to the center of American consciousness, making him zoom past Hillary Clinton who thought she was the Anointed One. They were the opposites of Marcos and Bush. That is what isn’t there today. There is the Evil, there is no Good. There is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, there is no opposite of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

At least among the current “presidentiables,” Panlilio has the potential to be so. Well, Tony Meloto, too, but I can’t convince him to run. Panlilio is so not because he is a priest, not because he is a religious, not because he likes to evangelize. He is so because he is an honest man, he is a decent man, he is a simple man. He is the moral choice. He is the Good to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s evil.

His enemies, not least in Malacañang, will of course dismiss him as “walang alam” [ignorant], innocent and naïve. Well, tyrants will always do that to their opposites. Marcos too dismissed Cory as being so, McCain (representing Bush) too dismissed Obama as being so. Cory and Obama went on to become presidents of their countries, and to restore honesty and decency, quite apart from democracy, to them.

Like Keh, I believe that we have not lost our capacity to want good. Like Keh, I believe that we have not lost our capacity to seek good. It’s just a question of finding a way to get back to the habit.

Ages ago, when I was trying to quit smoking, I found the most effective incentive in something an ex-smoker said. He said there was a habit just as powerful, if not more so, than smoking. There was a habit just as addictive, if not more so, than smoking. That was not smoking.

There is a habit just as powerful, if not more so, than wreaking evil. There is a habit just as addictive, if not more so, than spreading evil. That is doing good.

I’ve long quit smoking.