Next President

30.04.2016

10 Points on how I arrived at my choice for President.

First, a disclaimer. Unlike many spammers in Facebook I don’t have fortunes tied to one horse or another so much so that I have to shamelessly barrage my friends with black propaganda du jour both carefully and carelessly selected to taint my anti-horse du jour.

So I am left to trust framework and logic as well as healthy doses of open-minded listening and discernment in order to decide who to vote for (which in any case is the staple set I count on for most decisions most days).

So this is my calculus.

1. We don’t have a Rizal, Lincoln or Mandela running here. So this isn’t about voting for greatness or even any kind of upside to jump up and down about (unless you have aforementioned fortune tied to horse).

2. If it’s not upside, then what we all have to manage is downside. Risk, volatility, unpredictability, wild swings.

3. The risk premium is magnified by the inflection point we’re at right now. We are finally coming of age. Any way you look at it – whether in our economy, in our socio-polity, even in our construct of nation and what it means to be Filipino – we are johnny come lately, but fast catching up and on a track where pretty much nothing can stop us. Except an exceptionally bad choice for president.

4. Unfortunately, among these 5 presidentiables, there is one such exceptionally bad choice. So bad I could see this once in a lifetime basketcase possibly ruining it all for us. For easy reference purposes, let’s dub this candidate the antichrist. That is the magnitude of ruin I believe this egoistic maniac is capable of bringing on all of us.

5. But horrors! If you look down the VP corridor, you realize we have not one, but two antichrists in this race. Two of them who could haul us all down into a fall from grace so improbable the only way we could achieve it is to elect the antichrist.

6. With this electorate and the abundant stupidity I am sampling more and more from facebook, electing not one but two antichrists is unfortunately well within the realm of possibility, if not probability.

PS, by stupidity I don’t mean those who aren’t for my candidate. I mean all these mindless sharing and liking and kissing ass about content that is so obviously tainted and prejudiced for or against any candidate. What doesn’t add diminishes and in this very public, very social discourse on the elections I see very little content about platform and what and how we are building; much of what is here diminishes. In that respect, I must confess I see equal if not more egregious stupidity from people who do support my candidate.

7. So looking at it from this prism of risk, the safest choice is clear and away. It is the candidate who provides continuity, whose record is untainted by greed and corruption (although, like many of us, this candidate may have exhibited poor behavior, poor judgement and/or poor taste from time to time), who has been clearest in enunciating platform and program, including nuances gleaned from years of actually serving in the relevant branch of government. Given all the other choices, this candidate meets my definition of safe, boringly safe. And even if in worst case, this candidate, as the foremost criticism goes, is incapable of execution, that’s fine by me. Stay out of the damn way and cause no harm. Inaction is not an immovable object and we are an irresistable force. Do you hear the people sing, it is the light about to start when tomorrow comes… We are an economy and a society ready for greater heights and we don’t need politicians to take us there.

8. But here’s the kink. This choice only works if this candidate wins. Because if not, the heir apparent is none other than the antichrist (see #4-6 above). In other words, if not winnable the safest candidate is in fact the most dangerous choice because then we have paved the antichrist’s highway to the presidency.

9. Which leads me to the second safest choice in this election. It is the candidate who stands the best chance of stopping the antichrist and also stands a better chance of staying alive (as in not succumbing to disease) should we elect for VP the other antichrist.

10. So that’s how I am weighing my choice. It’s between 2 of the safest candidates and it will come down to who has the safer chance of stopping the antichrist.

Hope this helps.

May God be with us.

Andre Yap April 30, 2016