The Filipino ‘bobotante’

For some, the fact that we picked Benigno Aquino III over Joseph Estrada, an actor and convicted—albeit pardoned—plunderer, in 2010 is indicative of our growing political maturity. If we consider it mature to pick white or black. Indeed, both political personas are miles apart, the difference, then akin to day versus night.

Aquino, in 2010, represented a drastic change in the kind of leadership we were going to install at Malacañang. Estrada, a former president, was iconic of past politics. That he was also an actor widened the differences even more. Never mind that throughout the archipelago, we also elected a slew of former actors, comedians, game-show hosts and clowns, both to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Some imagine the choice to choose Aquino was political maturity. For others, the fact that we picked a candidate we thought was squeaky clean against another anointed by one of the most reviled and one, we imagined, had tipped the scales of corruption, is likewise indicative of growing political maturity. While the administration candidate, then-Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, was, by far, unsullied, qualified and competent, un- fortunately, he bore the anointment of his endorser and that was enough to taint him in the myopic eyes of a hatred-filled electorate that saw only what it wanted to see.

Never mind that throughout the next six years, we allowed in the highest office corruption scandal after corruption scandal involving the traditional pork-barrel anomaly to a grand aberration called the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

In the first instance, we picked a senator over an aging actor. That should be good, shouldn’t it? Never mind the finer details, like one was a totally unproductive legislator, while the other administered one of the most productive local government units in a growing metropolis. In the second instance, we picked someone we thought was honest against the candidate endorsed by an incumbent who would spend the following years defending against corruption charges.

Are these instances of political maturity? Never mind that latent reality pointed out in alarming detail how our taxes were stolen from budgeted uses then malversed to a coterie as nourishment for political patronage.

Were those choices intelligent? Indeed, are we now rid of the label “bobotante”?

Yes, it is derogatory. It hurts to be called that. Indeed, the term evokes profound stupidity and even deeper consequences that run through the Filipino psyche, spreading through its cerebral veins and throbbing through its cranial arteries, only to surface all-too-often and ever so untimely in the debilitating political and economic crises we constantly face because of the clowns and characters we elect to high office.

Many place the blame on the elected official for our problems. But we elected them. We elected a total incompetent once. We also once elected a buffoon to the highest office. We followed that up with a crook. And then we reprised our folly and installed another incompetent.

Commit a mistake. Repeat. And repeat again.

The term “bobotante” is, indeed, insulting, and even unpatriotic, given a populace that has little left of its dignity that its remnant right of suffrage will likewise be tainted, as it had always been tainted, by the indignity of a shibboleth that describes the Filipino voter as stupid.

The dilemma straddles the choice between realizing just how stupid our choices continue to be, versus blindly adhering to the idea that we remain a people developing from being a mindless electorate to maturing with pride, dignity and profound intelligence, despite our pathetic political choices.

Faced with a possible facsimile of a deceased movie icon; a moneyed, albeit a spin-and-publicity contrived traditional politician; and a veteran local government administrator and political oppositionist, in 2016, the choices and our eventual vote will reflect whether we remain stupid and immature or, indeed, if we’ve finally shed the label “bobotante.”