Dearth of good candidates

Aside from the perception that it rates as one of the dirtiest political campaigns in the country’s history, the 2016 presidential election is also seen as high in the paucity of qualified and deserving contenders to the nation’s highest office.

There were elections in the past where the voters could choose from an array of good presidential hopefuls. In 1992, for example, there were Senate President Jovito R. Salonga, House Speaker Ramon V. Mitra Jr., Vice President Salvador H. Laurel, Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos and Judge Miriam Defensor-Santiago. Two other aspirants—businessman Eduardo Cojuangco and former first lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos—merited a question mark.

In the 1957 presidential race, the list of presidential aspirants was also impressive. It included President Carlos P. Garcia, former speaker Jose Yulo, Sen. Claro M. Recto and Sen. Manuel P. Manahan. All of them were qualified and deserving. Even the least experienced among them, Senator Manahan, was a standout in politics and public service.

It will be recalled that Manahan’s running mate in that election, the first to be held after the demise of the popular Ramon Magsaysay, who perished on March 17, 1957, in a plane crash along with many government officials and newspapermen, was Vicente Araneta, a principled agriculturist and businessman.

Manahan and Araneta ran under the banner of  the Progressive Party of the Philippines  (PPP) which was founded by Manahan and Sen. Raul S. Manglapus, a beloved native son of Tagudin, Ilocos Sur. PPP was later known as Party for Philippine Progress.

The other presidential and vice presidential tandems in the 1957 election were Garcia and Speaker Jose B. Laurel Jr. of Nacionalista Party,  Yulo and Diosdado Macapagal of Liberal Party, and Recto and Sen. Lorenzo M. Tañada of the Nationalist Citizens Party. For the first time, the electorate voted into office a mixed ticket. Garcia, an NP, was elected president while Macapagal, an LP, won the vice presidency.

Unlike the present crop of candidates for president and vice president who are widely perceived as weak, undeserving and unpopular, all the aspirants in the1957 presidential and vice presidential polls were highly regarded in terms of integrity, public acceptability, competence and commitment to public service.

Indeed, the current contenders (and pretenders) pale in comparison and they all the more highlight the paucity of able and acceptable “presidentiables.” We will surely miss the likes of Salonga, Mitra, Recto, Tañada, Yulo, Manahan, Garcia and Laurel.

When will we again have the chance to choose from highly acceptable, honest, unblemished, competent and dedicated aspirants?  We can only hope that in the near future. We deserve no less.

—EUSEBIO S. SAN DIEGO, founder, Kaguro, and former president, Quezon City Public School Teachers Association, essandiego@ymail.com