We have five major candidates for President, although I must cite that there were a lot of people who wanted to become president. Some 80 filed their COCs. Many were disqualified, and one is still due for resolution of the Supreme Court. Democracy, as they say, is alive. Some say it’s being mocked, publicly.
Today, lets face it. Only those five “major” candidates can afford to pay the prices of running. Emotionally, socially, politically, and financially. They recently debated at Cagayan de Oro. You’ve seen them.
I wrote this because I felt like doing so. Its cool.
I am, like millions of Filipinos, is still undecided. Maybe, we are the margin of error in the survey.
But I have to admit, again for sure, that in 2010, while I was in college, I like voting for Binay. If only I could vote a thousand times, I would give it to him.
I am, then, a die-hard fan. I remember every word he spoke against Bayani Fernando in the debate. I watched, poignantly, his Youtube videos while trying to understand Facebook. I wrote guitar chords in a Makati notebook. He is my Steve Jobs.
Jejomar Binay, as a former civil rights lawyer, is an icon to look up to. He studied in UP, where I desperately wanted to take my law degree soon. He fought Marcos in the streets with his leadership and persuasive speeches. He was once poor, and he understand the plight of the poor. He was my Mayor. Our Mayor. My girlfriend’s Mayor.
Of all those dramatic admirations, there is one vulgar reason why I love campaigning for him. There is one big connection between us. His nickname, and political name so to speak, is Jojo. Thats my first and only name. There are millions of “Jojo” in the country. We are just one of them. But I feel proud, at least. Silly, but human.
Jojo was the mayor running for Vice President, a giant leap for a local politician. He was miles away from the survey frontrunners. But then on, he beats the odds. He’s now VP. And a future, possible and probable President.
The Makati voters, almost every election time, knew of his “alleged” corruptions. They are talks in the neighborhood. They are common on barber shops and markets. Even the papers show them. But why, over and over again, Binay has never suffered an election defeat? People still voted for him.
So the people, Makati commoners and townsfolks, are talking about all his corruption allegations. An outdated “sirang plaka”. It’s no news actually.
People still like Binay for Makati. For nearly two decades, he was the undisputed elected Monarch. And people vote their son and daughters too!
He leads Makati. Who doesn’t know where Makati is?
Makati is the Philippines’ richest city. There are the towering skyscrapers. There is SGV Head Office, a place I was looking forward to be employed in the future then. There is Rockwell. There is Glorietta. SM. The magnificent Ayala Triangle along Ayala Avenue. And the Philippine Stock Exchange, where a friend of mine works until now. There is Forbes Park, mentioned in F. Sionil Jose’s book Mass. Dasmarinas is here too, with closed 24-hour security gates.
Makati, a once barren ground for the airport runway, is now a world’s business hacienda. And I lived there.
And we, as Makati residents, are proud that our IDs and drivers license bear the address “Street X, Barangay X, Makati City.” Sa Siyudad ng Makati, where “Paglingkuran ang B” logos are in every government properties, in every fence or street marks. In every government-subsidized goods. In almost everything Makati government is. That logo bears the big, undisputable letter “B”. Well, thats for Binay, este Bayan.
There live the rich and luxurious executives, businessmen and artists. The poor live in small, Binay-termed “informal settlers’ area”. There is a contrast of living, but, though poor we are, we feel rich too: because we study free in the local and secondary too. We don’t have to pay tuition but we are expected good grades in return. We need not worry for our food, because there are free feeding programs. The University of Makati is terrific. Makati Science High School produced great mathematicians and scientists.
There are free uniforms here, mind you, as against me having to sell balotin the streets just to afford a single pair of Isabela high school uniforms. There are notebooks, pens and papers. Binay, the champion public servant, made us feel rich too.
Our grandparents feel important too, because every birthday, though they can’t afford buying their own handa, Binay sends them, as if they were long lost friends. There is food on the table, a simple baked flour and cream and bread we call ceremoniously as “cake”. There is smile in their toothless faces.
We feel secured, because in Makati, there is Saint Luke's Medical Center, one of the world’s best. But, we can’t afford medical services there, we just know it by name and prestige. Binay gave OsMak (Ospital ng Makati) free for us. An alternative for the poor, a St Luke's. Okay na din.
We have the tallest City Hall, and the other parking space behind, a subject of a year-long Senate inquiry. I only got a chance to visit when a friend of mine worked there as an OJT. And I remember staring seriously to the etched wordings on the hall beam. It was nice, and cool.
And, that same way, I would like to rest my memories of Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay as nice and cool.
But the Senate destroyed him. Not destroyed, but exposed him. To me. And as much as I wanted to vote for him, campaign for him, hashtag for him, it just seemed hard. So hard to cover my eyes and ears for everything that has been exposed, of which his answers seemed to go nowhere but evasion, political malpractice, derailment of ambition.
The same script. The same lies.
Or, are they lies?
How can I, and those other Binay die-hards before, trust him again? There is no more than three months to decide whether to elect him President or go for someone else we don’t actually know.
I am sorry. But, yes, I still think Binay is nice and cool.
