Unmediated by spin

Former Sen. Richard Gordon has a suggestion: All candidates for national office—principally those vying for the presidency and vice presidency—should be required to participate in a series of formal debates to be held in various regions of the country, the better, as he put it in a statement, for the Filipino electorate “to make informed and unbiased decisions based on the candidates’ qualifications, track record, platform of government, views on national and local issues, and performance under fire.”

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte has called Gordon’s suggestion “a good idea.” He should have called it a no-brainer. Where other countries are concerned, debating in public and defending one’s position before voters is de rigueur for anyone in the running for a seat in government. It’s the most elementary courtesy that a candidate can make to the people whose votes one is seeking—to explain one’s understanding of the issues that affect their daily lives, how one plans to conduct oneself in office, what one thinks one can do to improve one’s constituents’ lot, why the electorate should even consider one worthy to presume to lead them and take up the mantle of authority and sovereignty on their behalf.

Say what you will about the increasing absurdity and silliness of American politics, but public debate remains a nonnegotiable part of its rituals and processes. All candidates for both the Democratic and Republican primaries have to go through a series of fully televised debates where they get to articulate their views on a range of issues and make their case before voters. Enlightenment, of course, is another matter. The fact that the buffoonish tycoon Donald Trump is still leading the Republican pack even after repeatedly making a spectacle of himself in the debates with racist, incendiary statements is proof that flash and braggadocio can just as easily take over such media-genic events and drown out the substantive discussions.

Still, better a format where a candidate’s position gets subjected to scrutiny and one is forced to speak on one’s feet than a situation where an electorate is merely fed a barrage of unchallenged talking points by the politician’s spinmeisters. Consumption of hot air is ultimately fatal to the health of voters; they inevitably end up regurgitating the same craven figures for public office, the ones who’ve mastered the art of pandering and glad-handing and framing complex, deep-rooted social issues with neat promises of deliverance and crafty turns of phrase.

Sen. Grace Poe’s ambitious 20-point agenda for her purported presidency, for instance: So far, the people have heard it only once, as a basic recitation of intention during her announcement of her run, and nowhere else where they can ask her to expound on her generically stated goals. Improving infrastructure to boost tourism? Reforming the tax system? Imposing greater discipline on the police force? Strengthening the Philippines’ position in the West Philippine Sea? How? Anyone can string together motherhood objectives like these—but how exactly did Poe arrive at her appraisal of the country’s most urgent needs, and how does she plan to address them?

Vice President Jejomar Binay has to answer the same questions, especially in light of the fact that, in the last five years, he was part of the administration that had presided over a host of intractable problems, such as the marked deterioration of the LRT/MRT and public transport in general, the wave of assassinations targeting the lumad, or the continuing record levels of poverty despite the administration’s much-vaunted economic renaissance—the same basic issues which he is expected to address. More than these issues, however, Binay must answer, in a televised debate, questions about the steep rise in his wealth, and the plausible allegations of massive corruption that have been leveled at him.

But if the government’s failings are a halfway burden on Binay, they are a full-on albatross on Mar Roxas, who, as President Aquino’s anointed, must be made to answer before the people the various ways by which the administration has failed them.

So far, all three and their like have relied on their paid PR hacks to make their case before the voting public. They need to be heard, unfiltered and unmediated by spin. Requiring them to engage in public debate is not only a good idea; it is the most sensible idea there is to be able to make sense of the circus ahead.