Power-mad or servant leaders by 2022?

This question is looming larger less than a year before the national elections, and as we continue to mourn the death of a servant leader, former president Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, better known as P-Noy.

P-Noy’s death has spawned various reactions, both pleasant and unpleasant. On the positive side, P-Noy initiated reforms that forged a better Philippines in terms of economic outcomes after a long succession of depressing twists and turns brought about by systemic corruption, abuse of authority, including a shameless executive meddling in election results.

P-Noy was the subject of numerous name-calling and other forms of verbal assaults based on a widely perceived snail-paced decision-making and other imperfections, even those that relate to his personal life. But he never lashed out at his critics in public using invectives and unprintable expressions—something that the current president would have done. This showed how well-mannered and respectful the late president was, in stark contrast to the present one.

Soon after P-Noy died, trolls lost no time in vilifying his name, casting aspersions on the reasons for his death, among many other degrading comments on social media about him, his quirks, and even his personal life as the only bachelor president the country had so far. The latter became a subject of nationwide speculation on why he remained single, in a country where marriage is culturally considered a “desired goal” for anyone, male or female.

P-Noy occupies a distinctive place in Philippine history for restoring a high level of respectability, dignity, and statesmanship befitting the highest position of leadership in any nation-state. He articulated how inclusive he was, referencing state security institutions like the military and police as “ours”—unlike the sitting president who always makes proprietary claims on police officers and soldiers as “his.” Moreover, P-Noy has never given the police a license to kill criminal suspects. He has neither ordered soldiers to shoot female New People’s Army dissidents in the vagina, nor has he mouthed misogynistic remarks. In contrast, all these seem to be hardwired into President Duterte’s psyche.

During his term, P-Noy always maintained that his power sprung from his being the servant of the people as in his slogan, “Kayo ang boss ko” (You are my bosses). His insistence on living a simple, never garish lifestyle, of not using “wang-wang” to assert his prerogative of being the first in line spoke volumes of how he was not drawn to the seductive pull of political power, and of his deep respect for the rule of law.

For many, political power is an addictive potion that seduces those who ascend to it to push for more; indeed, power is a wellspring of insatiable, never-ending greed.

P-Noy’s “addiction” was limited to listening to music, eating comfort food, and unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking Coke. According to a personal account by his cousin Rapa Lopa, this has become a metaphor to describe his “dwindling” love life. As P-Noy himself joked in one of his many press conferences, his love life was “parang Coca-Cola—noong araw regular, naging light, ngayon zero.”

The 2022 elections is a test of our national resolve to select candidates who will not be seduced by addictive political power; who are trustworthy and not abusive of their authority; who will consistently be humble, respectful, and always mindful of the welfare of the greater number of Filipinos, just like P-Noy had been.

Sadly our choices as voters in the forthcoming elections might be limited to a list of “evil and lesser-evil” candidates—those who use political power to become even greedier for more power and wealth, ad infinitum.

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