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OPINION
ADELLE CHUA EDITOR
lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph
OPINION
PUTIN’S NAVY SENDS A SHOT ACROSS OBAMA’S BOW
[ EDI TORI A L ]
A CERTAIN KIND OF CRAZY
By Tobin Harshaw
ONE hundred thirty people filed their certificates of candidacy for the presidency last week. The spokesman of the Commission on Elections had only good words for what transpired. “This is a symbol of a vibrant democracy...more people feel empowered to put themselves forward as candidates,” said James Jimenez. Despite the exhortation of some sectors for candidates and their supporters to keep the weeklong filing a sober event, the past few days still saw gimmickry and other attempts to call attention to the candidates—the whole spectrum of them. Aside from the 130 who said they wished to seek the highest post in the land, there were also 19 who wanted to run for vice president and 172 who wanted to “offer themselves up” as senators. Of course, these numbers include the names of those who are deemed serious about their decision. These are the ones who are supported by legitimate political organizations and who have had some experience in public service. These are the faces we look forward to see engaged in debate about substantive issues concerning the country, generally, and communities, specifically. They are the few about whom surveys have been commissioned. They will also be among those who would engage in the dirty-tricks department—if they have not begun already. We can only surmise what is going on in the minds of the rest of the presidential hopefuls. Amid cheering crowds and costumed participants, some of the most unlikely individuals have gathered up the courage to apply for what is arguably the most difficult job in the land. It is easy to brand them as loonies, or crazies, or the more acceptable term—nuisances. There was a man who named himself angel and devil combined. Another wanted to legalize four seasons in the Philippines to replace the two we are used to. Yet another proposed opening of convenience stores at every turn. There were those, however, who knew they were a hopeless case yet decided to file anyway. A farmer, for instance, wanted to call attention to the plight of his sector. Perhaps some people simply crave the satisfaction from the knowledge that they tried. Some perhaps truly believe they stand a chance. Whatever the reasons are, isn’t vying for the presidency an indication of craziness, to a point? After all, why disrupt your quiet life for a six-year political stint that would most likely be thankless? Why sacrifice time with your family and for your personal pursuits for a job whose troubles never end? Why risk going to jail afterwards even as everything you do is presumably for the good of the country and not your own? Look what the presidency has done to our current chief executive, who has often complained of his lack of a social life and of the loss of his hair. It is now the Comelec’s job to sift through these applications. It’s been an interesting week, indeed. The coming campaign season promises to be an interesting period, too. We just have to remind ourselves that the actual presidency is not as prone to fanfare or excitement; in fact, if one took it seriously, it is dreary and difficult and boring—just as, in an ideal world, real governance shuns fanfare and soundbytes. We hope we are not too crazy in hoping the hopefuls could tell the difference.
A SURPLUS OF PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS
ON THE first day of the filing of certificates of candidacy for national positions last Monday, a total of 22 individuals trooped to the national headquarters of the Commission on Elections to manifest their supposed earnest desire to offer their lives in the service of country and the Filipino people as President. As of Thursday evening, there were close to a hundred presidential hopefuls!
The number was astonishing because for a while back there, most of us were actually bewailing the utter lack of choices for the 2016 presidential contest. Of course, we all know that the number of hopefuls would be decimated in a few weeks’ time when Comelec declares some, if not most of them, as nuisance candidates. Nevertheless, there are a lot of things that can be said about the surge in the number of people who actually believe in their heart of hearts that they could and should be President of the Republic of the Philippines. We can all take an optimistic view of this development and convince ourselves that this is
When we come to think about it, it’s not farfetched to imagine that in a country of 100 million people, there are more choices other than Mar Roxas, Jejomar Binay, Grace Poe, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
reflective of the very wide, deep, and fertile pool of talent that we have in this country. When we come to think about it, it’s not far-
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fetched to imagine that in a country of 100 million people, there are more choices other than Mar Roxas, Jejomar Binay, Grace Poe,
and Miriam Defensor-Santiago. This view, however, is shot down —and rather fatally, at that—by the fact that a sizable number of those who filed their certificates of candidacy seemed like people who desperately need to have multiple sessions with a shrink. How else does one explain the fact that we have someone claiming to be an intergalactic ambassador who said he was urged to run by aliens among the bunch? I like the humor theory submitted by some people. This theory says that what we witnessed this week was really yet another expression of our innate sense of humor. We’re just the kind of people who allows moments of
levity even in the most tragic or saddest circumstances. We have been known to crack jokes, or even stage practical jokes, to break the tension out of very stressful situations. Unfortunately, this theory presupposes that those who filed their candidacies had higher thinking skills to grasp the concept of irony or satire, something that seems unlikely given the rambling and often nonsensical gibberish they spewed after they filed their certificates of candidacy. Someone I know insisted that those who filed their candidacies for president
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deserve, at the very least, our empathy. She said she still believed deep in her heart that despite the seeming absurdity of the situation, those people were still driven by the overwhelming desire to contribute to making this country great again. An extension of this belief was about how those people were really activists taking matters into their own hands; presumably, they’ve had enough of the the inability of government to make things work in this country so they were rising to the occasion. I would have gone to Comelec to applaud those people if we
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saw indications that altruism was truly behind their behavior. This leaves us with just two more theories. First, people’s perceptions of the qualification requirements for the presidency have reached an abysmally low level—it seems many actually think anyone can step up to the job. It’s difficult to disprove this perception because we did have a President who was an undergraduate and we have people like Emmanuel Pacquiao who keeps on making public statements about Continued on A6
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RUSSIA’S attack on Syrian territory last week, using cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, led to a fair amount of chuckling in the West, after US reports that four of the missiles crashed in Iran. But this is no laughing matter. Arguing over the attack’s effectiveness misses the point. If Moscow had only wanted to hit Bashar al-Assad’s enemies in Syria, it has plenty of ships nearby in the Mediterranean to do the job. Rather, the Russians launched the 26 missiles from the Caspian simply to show they were capable of doing so. The US and its allies should be warned: Vladimir Putin notched another success. Western militaries were already well aware that Russia had capable cruise missiles, which are self-propelled weapons that can fly great distances at supersonic speed and below radar detection. The West also knew that Moscow had deployed four armed corvette warships in the Caspian, where it has maintained a naval presence for centuries. The revelation was that Russia had combined the two: giving the relatively small ships—the Buyan-M class displaces just 950 tons—firepower comparable to much larger US Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers. By using the corvettes and the Kalibr NK cruise missile system, the Kremlin sent a shot across America’s bow, and in two ways. The first was showing off its increasing capability in what military analysts call distributed lethality warfare. The strategy here is to avoid giving the enemy one big target, by spreading out the weaponry of war and the related technology, including guidance systems and sensors, to a host of smaller units. This creates two sets of problems for an adversary: Smaller targets are harder to find, and hitting just one does little to undermine the enemy’s offensive capability. Think of Hercules’ Hydra on a regional or global scale. This ability to threaten the US from a host of locations makes a good counterstrategy to the Navy’s emphasis on denying hostile powers access to vital areas and ensuring free passage in air and sea trade routes. While the US builds its gigantic new Ford-class aircraft carriers, sitting ducks at $10 billion a pop, China in particular is investing heavily in anti-ship missiles, submarines and surveillance craft, as well as creating islands in the South China Sea. As for Russia, the Buyans aren’t the only tiny threat under development: It is reportedly renovating and adding to its fleet of Cold War-era Piranya mini-subs that can lay underwater mines, fire torpedoes and dispatch small underwater combat teams. With a minuscule displacement of 390 tons and a titanium-alloy hull, they run virtually silent. Last fall, the Swedish military accused the Russians of testing covert subs in Swedish territory in the Baltic Sea, leading to a brief but tense standoff. (Some peace activists took a decidedly non-traditional approach to deterring Russian incursions.) Above the Baltic surface, Russia has made a Continued on A6
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