Forgiving and forgetting

YOU can feel it in the air: the mid-term elections. The crackdown on opposition bailiwicks, a continuous barrage of news releases about how life is so much better now, a parade of the government’s achievements in the war on terror, the dirt-digging and mudslinging.

On the ground, politicians are much kinder now, more charitable. Ask, and you shall receive. They are much-more approachable; they smile more often and they ditch the fancy suits, Rolex watches and blinding blings. The cordon sanitaires are lifted, the bodyguards melt away in the background, and our candidates seem to know each and everyone – especially the poor, sweat-soaked, hardly educated hoi polloi – like they were long-lost brothers. The baby-kissing, yes, that undying cliché of political barnstorming, is now a ubiquitous, eye-straining spectacle.

While an election year always brings out the best in our politicians, it, sadly, also lures out the worse in us, voters.

We are a very forgiving race, so much so that while they hang dictators and tyrants in Iraq, here we elect them to Congress and heap praises on their spawns. Small favors, especially from somebody important or famous, elate us no end and often cloud our good judgment. A mere visit to our humble home or a handshake from the town mayor or someone we see everyday on TV is sometimes enough to make us conclude that this person may have a good soul, after all, and deserves to be elected in office again. Never mind if this same person has, while in office, turned a deaf ear to our pleas for help when we were looking for jobs or with our sewer problems and who made us wait in long queues and for long hours just waiting for the signature of a curmudgeon of a minion of his.

Forgiving is a virtue, but forgiving without learning anything from the experience – to just forgive and forget – is a fault.

Remember that senator who danced while the nation burned in disgust over her and her allies’ attempts to railroad the impeachment trial of the sitting president? She has humbly asked for our forgiveness and is again taking a crack at a Senate seat. Should we forgive her? Of course. Should we put her back to the Senate? Of course not.

Let us not be fooled again.

After a long slump, the Philippine economy is once more on the rebound. Our peso is stronger against the dollar, so we can buy more with it. Money from all over is coming to our shores, perking up the stock market, giving local companies a boost and creating jobs. The government is finally saving enough to be able to trim its debs and pay for roads, bridges, power plants, irrigation facilities and other infrastructure the country needs to reel in more investments.

Some of the benefits of this recent economic spurt are slowly trickling down to us down the economic pyramid. Oil prices are down, our electric bills are lower and credit rates are falling.

Though thanks in some part to an economic slump in the United States that is again spreading American wealth to the rest of the world, our rebound won’t be possible without men who, despite the odds, are laying the foundation that is making it possible for the Philippines to partake of the prosperity now sweeping much of Asia. Men like Gary Teves, the guy at finance who has been adept at reining in spending and improving the government’s revenue even if, at times, it means pushing unpopular measures like the value-added tax. He doesn’t do what he does with as much fanfare as a Wowowee! episode, which is why he’s not topping any political surveys, but truth is, here’s a guy who really deserves a seat in the Senate.

So come May, when we again troop to our polling precincts, we pray that we are not going to write on our ballots the names of people who will again mess it all up for all of us. Not the ex-senator (who thankfully will finally get some time behind bars) who made the Philippines miss the economic boom of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with his military adventurism. Not the mutineer (who thankfully is still in jail) with the messianic complex and who is so deeply in love with his self-worth. Not the homophobic actor whose real achievement is marrying one of the country’s most desirable women. Not the former vice president who can’t even think straight.

There are still a few good men out there, and it’s not difficult to spot them. All we have to do is look closer.