Discernment and common sense against the candidates’ bandwagon fallacy

The bandwagon fallacy for a presidential team is the creation of highly-paid media practitioners to lure and entrap minds into believing that someone is everyone’s presidential choice and therefore must be the right choice. We are shown the published surveys of reputable outfits showing runaway leads, with photographs of mammoth crowds paralyzing traffic.

But little is known of the person’s experience or his capability for the lofty position of leading the lives of 110 million individuals now in the throes of their worst crisis ever. How can common sense go against the spread of such fallacy?

Out of the more than 60 million of the country’s voters, 52 percent are aged 18 to 35. Majority of them are part of the 8.9 percent presently unemployed, or 4.25 million heads of families, or an estimated 20 million individuals possibly with not enough to eat. Their lives will never improve unless the right leader comes along, whom we can fully trust and have full faith in that he will fulfill campaign promises. That leader must also have no qualms going against dynasties and oligarchies that have prevented the country’s full industrialization and economic development. Our peers in the region have proven that consistency of policies and ease of doing business are the minimum needed to open up a country to foreign investments.

It was a whiff of fresh air to hear Vice President Leni Robredo declare much of this policy direction in a Dec. 7, 2021 forum on Angat Buhay, including her declaration to provide more jobs to Filipinos by going into massive industrialization. “There is no other way to do this but through leadership. Those who govern must show that it is willing to go against vested interests and exhibit decisiveness, moral courage, and political will in the name of the public which it serves,” said Robredo.

The Vice President has proven to be a tireless and selfless public servant. When she was allowed by President Duterte to serve in his Cabinet, her determined thrust to solve problems in housing and in the anti-drug war campaign in an innovative way made the President insecure, because she showed a different and better way of solving them. She remained true to her responsibility as Vice President with her own initiatives during disasters. She can be trusted to fulfill what she seeks out to do, with the qualities we need most in a leader: credibility, trustworthiness, integrity.

Her vision for a better country for the youth should debunk this baseless bandwagon fallacy built for candidates who have not shown any upstanding leadership qualities.

marvelktan@yahoo.com