NOW THAT ALL THE CANDIDATES FOR THE elections next year have not made up their minds, let us look back to the past presidential elections for the lessons we may learn from them.

The prospects for the 2010 election, except for the die-hard candidates who are already campaigning for the office they hope to occupy next year, are still unclear. Manny Villar says he is what he is, support or reject him for all his millions. Noynoy Aquino bases his claim on Ninoy and Cory, and Mar Roxas who could have been a worthy bet for the top position is already rooting with his wife Korina for their “ninong.” Gibo Teodoro, for all his personal recommendations, “galing at talino,” has not clicked despite or because of the Arroyo administration, or better still its head. And Erap is still running, again.

As for the rest of the aspirants, you could fault them for indecision. If the coming election were like the recent typhoons, we would all be dying now from the floods and the landslides. Chiz Escudero has left his original party and Loren Legarda is still looking for a party to sponsor her—for the presidency or lower. Jojo Binay has found a convenient partner in Estrada, and Bayani Fernando is still bent on running, for the first or the second position, as long as he is running. Moreover, some other candidates may come up between now and the deadline, to further confuse the electorate.

To date, the most perplexing to the electorate under the present Constitution was the presidential election of 1992 where as many as eight candidates believed he or she was the ice cream flavor of the month. Only one won, and with the backing of only 30 percent of the voters, or less than one third of the electorate. As many as 70 percent of them did not vote for him or supported the other candidates or did not vote at all for any of them.

The theory is that under a democracy, the ultimate decision is to be made by the intelligent electorate as the representative of the sovereign people. This objective is best achieved where choices are limited under the two-party system, as when Manuel L. Quezon won with 92 percent of the votes cast in his favor over the equally respectable Juan Sumulong of the opposition in the 1940 presidential election.

In 1998, under the present Constitution, with Joseph Estrada as the conceded winner during the campaign with an overwhelming margin from the masses who idolized him, his expected “landslide” vote consisted only of 30 percent of total presidential vote. There were not many rivals against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2004 where she received only 30.6 percent of the total presidential vote, including Hello, Garci and the P728-million fertilizer funds. GMA’s closest rival was Fernando Poe Jr., “Ang Panday.” The winner’s margin would have been higher if there had been no “also-rans” as under the 1935 Constitution

Most of the presidential candidates were not lightweights in the presidential combats. Everyone considered himself the probable winner. But limiting the elections to the more serious aspirants would have led to a more accurate determination of the real choice of the voters.

Fidel Ramos was the hero of Edsa I and served as secretary of defense under President Cory Aquino. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago mistakenly thought she was the winner from the early report of the votes in Metro Manila. Eduardo Cojuangco and Imelda Marcos, both from the old despotism, canceled each other’s votes, Jovito R. Salonga and Salvador H. Laurel both came from the Senate, and Ramon Mitra was Speaker of the House of Representatives. If the other candidates had given way to Ramos and Santiago, the results would have been more realistic.

In 1998, Estrada’s margin would have been more reliable over Speaker Jose de Venecia if the other candidates, to wit, Raul Roco, Renato de Villa, Lito Osmeña, Alfredo Lim, Juan Ponce Enrile, Santiago Dumlao and Manuel Morato, as the less hopeful aspirants, had withdrawn. In 2004, the contest between GMA and FPJ—eliminating graft and corruption—would have been more tightly drawn.

The Constitution provides that “no person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.”

There was a familiar but comical character in presidential elections under the two-party system but not many people took him seriously. Another candidate filed a certificate of candidacy but did not even bother to vote for himself. Other persons may also decide to run for public office but only to solicit contributions from friends and supporters never actually spent for campaign purposes.

The Commission on Elections may disqualify a person as a nuisance candidate where there are circumstances or acts clearly demonstrating that he has no bona fide intention to run for the office subject of his certificate of candidacy.

With the multiplicity of political parties under the present system, coupled with the introduction of the party-list members in the House of Representatives, the true will of the electorate in the choice of the candidates for president of the Philippines becomes difficult to ascertain, or accept, insofar as it requires the winner to obtain a mere plurality of the votes cast and not a more democratic majority.