We will end up with many presidential candidates, but will the best of them win? Even a lame foot can win a hundred meters if the others collapse before the goal. A choice in which the majority sees no other way out but to choose between bad, worse, and worst is certainly not a great moment for democracy. The one perceived as the least unsuitable by the citizens can win.
The ruling party is looking for a clone of Rodrigo Duterte. The opposition—whose clone is it looking for? Who actually wants to continue the politics of the last few years? The problems have just gotten too big to sit things out any longer. We need a government that renews social cohesion and an industrial base that does not pay low wages and makes further cuts in social benefits. We need more investments, better education, better pay for skilled workers, the restoration of a performance-oriented welfare state, and consistent promotion of future technologies.
If you instead let the middle class and the lower half of the population pay for the mistakes of the past, you are committing a sin against democracy and our future.
Dr. Juergen Schoefer, Ph.D. Cainta, Rizal biopreparat.schoefer@gmail.com