In the homestretch of the presidential race

“IF THE elections were held today, who would you likely vote as president?”  That was the question Social Weather Stations interviewers asked 1,800 voters on March 4-7. If elections were held then, Grace Poe would have been elected president. The results of the SWS survey conducted at that time showed Poe the candidate preferred by the greatest number of voters.

If elections had been held a month earlier, on Feb. 5, Jejomar Binay would have emerged the president-elect. The results of the SWS survey done in the first week of February indicated that Binay was the choice of the largest number of voters.

The changing preference of voters was to a large extent influenced by the events preceding the conduct of the surveys. Late last year, the Commission on Elections disqualified Poe from running for president on grounds that she is not a natural-born Filipino and had not met the required 10-year residency. Believing that she was out of the presidential race, many voters expressed their preference for Binay in the survey conducted in February. But just a day after that survey was completed came news of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ decision to indict Binay for the alleged overpricing of the Makati City Hall Building II.

A lot of things can happen between now and May 9, Election Day, that can influence the voters’ final choice of president. In fact, a lot of things have happened since SWS conducted that March 4-7 survey. On March 8, the Supreme Court declared Poe a natural-born citizen and that she had met the residency requirement and was therefore a qualified candidate. That was expected to make many voters switch back to Poe.  Then there was the second Comelec-organized presidential debate which gave millions of viewers a glimpse of the character of the candidates and of their understanding of governance.

What the candidates do or not do from hereon may be crucial to their victory on May 9. What they say or not say during the third and last debate on April 24 may be a significant factor in the voters’ final choice.

To many political observers, the March 20 debate was close to a debacle for Binay and Poe. It exposed to millions of viewers the high-and-mighty attitude of Binay, who, against the debate rules, insisted on bringing his notes to the podium and delayed the proceedings by an hour and a half. It also allowed his adversaries to raise the many charges of graft and corruption leveled at him.

The debate also displayed Poe’s hollowness and utter lack of executive experience. When asked by Rodrigo Duterte what steps she would take if she were awakened in the middle of the night and informed that two Philippine Coast Guard cutters had just been blown up, she said she would strengthen the military by increasing its budget. When Duterte repeated the question, she said she would first get up, call the heads of the Armed Forces and the Department of Transportation and Communications, and invoke the Visiting Forces Agreement to get allies to help defend the country. The VFA has nothing to do with the country’s defense.

The past two debates have generally discussed national issues, eliciting from the candidates mostly motherhood statements like encouraging foreign investment, boosting the growth of agribusiness, pushing for universal healthcare, strengthening national defense, eradicating graft and corruption, and reducing criminality. I hope the town hall meeting format of the third debate would draw from the candidates their plans regarding the concerns of ordinary citizens and small entrepreneurs.

Among the issues that impact on ordinary citizens and small entrepreneurs are the “boundary” system in the public transport sector, the contractualization of labor, and the senior-citizen discount in drugstores. I hope these are touched on in the April 24 debate.

The boundary system compels bus and jeepney drivers to race on the road to beat each other to a passenger or to swerve or stop anywhere to pick up one, causing many accidents and contributing to the traffic gridlock in the metropolis. Contractualization is the response of employers to labor laws that are overprotective of workers. It is difficult for an employer to dismiss an erring, indolent, even dishonest, employee if he or she has been regularized. I know from long experience as an employer.

The ineptly conceived Senior Citizens Law is killing the drugstore business, save for the big chains. All the medicines a family-owned drugstore sells are products manufactured by drug companies. It normally makes a profit of only 5-8 percent on the medicine it sells. But the law obligates the store to give a senior citizen a 20-percent discount. So, a store gets only 85-87 percent of what it paid the manufacturer. The big chains are able to pass on the loss to the drug companies. In contrast, a senior citizen buying grocery items from a supermarket gets only a 5-percent discount and only up to a certain amount of purchase for one week. There is no such limit to the senior citizen’s purchase of drugs.

It is hoped that the debate organizers will be up to the challenge of the third and final presidential debate by sticking strictly to the town hall format and not allowing the moderators to be the center of the event, as in other ABS-CBN public affairs programs. The broadcaster should emulate CNN’s program hosts who merely provoke guests to voice their thoughts and who do not get involved in the discussion of issues.

Oscar P. Lagman Jr. is a political activist and longtime observer of Philippine politics.