Talk is cheap

And talk is especially cheap when it comes from politicians during the election season, most notably presidential aspirants who are jockeying for votes from an electorate with a long wish list and an even longer list of complaints.

At the forum for presidential candidates organized early this week by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, there was talk aplenty from the candidates who were naturally eager to win the backing of businessmen with deep pockets. They harped on issues popular with the business community—the Philippines’ need to catch up with its neighbors in the field of infrastructure, the need to improve the ease of doing business and cut regulatory red tape, the need to reform the tax structure, and the need to continue fighting corruption and ease poverty.

All these are issues that are music to the ears of businessmen, many of whom face daily—and widely publicized—struggles in the course of running their enterprises.

Thus, it is no surprise that the candidates would tailor their individual messages to suit the audience at hand. For the underprivileged, one should promise better and cheaper (or even free) social services. For the middle class, one should promise to cut taxes. And for the business community, one should commit to improve the infrastructure scene. This formula is no state secret.

A serious presidential contender should have the smarts to—for want of a better term—“game the system” by telling people what they want to hear, regardless of whether one’s message will vary or be contradictory from one audience to the next. And in the various forums for presidential candidates expected to be held from now until 2016, one can expect them to promise everything to everyone, every time.

This is not to say that these forums are entirely useless, even if they are quite easy to game. At the least, they provide the national audience a chance to see and hear how individual candidates plan to run a country of 100 million citizens, in a toxic and fractured political environment. At best, they offer us a glimmer of hope that a growing number of people are increasingly shifting their method for assessing candidates from the old personality-based system to the issues-based model.

Wanting to hear what potential future leaders have to say is infinitely better than simply voting for them based on name recall, or how well they sing and dance on stage, or worse, how much they fork across.

Businessmen have a big role to play in the national selection process for the country’s next CEO. For the most part, the business sector, in its pragmatic desire to have a president who will bring about the ideal environment for broad economic growth, will always support the candidate that best embodies its hopes and dreams.

For candidates to win over the businessmen and the desired financial support, they will have to be well-versed in the issues that affect the economy and, correspondingly, the ways to help the country hurdle the obstacles to growth (such as the persistent challenge of promoting growth that benefits not only the already wealthy but most especially the poorest of the poor).

In short, those who want to be president have to present the people with a plan that is comprehensive as well as coherent, ideal as well as doable. Only the ones with the best platform will get the business community’s votes, and the billions of pesos needed to win a national campaign.

But it doesn’t end there. The broad electorate must learn to be discerning, especially because there is practically no way of holding a president accountable to his or her campaign promises (for example, President Aquino was unheeding of the outcry resulting from his failure to deliver the Freedom of Information Law that he promised during the 2010 campaign).

Listening to the candidates’ words is a good start. But being mindful of their past and present actions is the imperative follow-through.

Ultimately, the electorate must learn to discern the true worth and weight of a presidential aspirant based not only on his or her pronouncements but also on his or her collective package. This includes the track record or, barring that, the perceived ability to translate words into action.

As we all know by now, it’s easy to talk the talk. It’s much more difficult to walk it.