Our circuitous route took us to the non-event, Jester, Marocharim and I. A non-event which was fruitful in that at our bodies were nourished with food and drinks. On the way I said I was nervous and didn’t know why. I had no expectations and with good reason. To expect anything would have led to disappointment. I was not disappointed. Non-events do no such thing.
The Senator is more goodlooking in person, although he lacks any kind of gravitas a charismatic leader would need to govern. While young and theoretically promising, he would not be able to command me to jump off a building. One question after the next, the good senator parried well with DJB, Dingand the others. I noticed he had a ready answer for each query, not pausing to think or reflect. Idle chatter it was, his answers to all questions were as vacuous as the space he occupied – devoid of truth or principles, devoid of warmth or subjectivity. Technically his answers were to be expected from a politician – at first impression weighty, but in essence hollow.
I did not get to ask him all the questions ruminating in my head, although he did talk about two of my pet issues. On the Reproductive Health bill, the senator does not seem to think that the Church mattered much, when in reality the clergy is the single biggest lobby against its passage. Twice I asked him what he thought about state support in providing family planning services, and twice he refused to answer – in the circuitous manner politicians do. On the State’s labour export policy, the Senator did not even recognize that it was problematic. For him it was fact, a permanent feature of the Philippine social landscape.
I asked him, if and when he does announce his candidacy for the highest office in the land, why I should vote for him. His simple answer was that he was the best.
The best? Given that we take “the best” at face value, then is he the best this society has produced to run for President? Now that, I found disappointing. He may be the best technocrat there is, but you have a whole bureaucracy for the nitty-gritty. I need a leader who can offer me vision and a sense of proportion. A leader whose call for unity I would follow. A leader who struggles to inspire. A leader with a pulse.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Mar Roxas, to my mind, would not make a good president. The blogger himself has interviewed the good senator up, close, and personal only to get nothing that would inspire him to vote for Mar should he run for the presidency.
Mr. Palengke to me does not quite inspire. He is no longer the Mr. Palengke that he wants himself to be known. Now, he is Mr. Gamot and we know the other one is Pia Cayetano as perhaps, Ms. Gamot.
I see nothing about Mar that makes him a good material as president of this country. Just nothing.
He betrayed Erap. Now he is inclined to betray GMA just the same. I don’t like people like him.
Caffeine,
My deceased criminal law professor has an apt analogy. “In the island of the blind the cross-eyed is the king”.
Compare Mar with Lacson, Escudero, Noli, Villar, Erap, Binay and other wannabees. It seems that we do not have of the best of the worst lot.
Again I go back to my old pundit who said that the talents of Ninoy and Marcos can come only once in a century.
Welcome to 80 years more of political mediocrity. :)
Why not publish the interview with Mar Roxas?
right, what about a transcript?
He was right, Church shouldn’t matter. HELL, Chruch didn’t matter when politicians steal or cheat so why should it matter when they approve a population control bill and give budget for it. Besides Church is a lost cost; it’s religion. Wanna fight religion? Just so education budget fits to serve all public school kids. This is why I believe a conservative party is necessary for this country. Liberals don’t seem to know where their heads are right now. Which reminds me, Nick I sent you my details. I’ll write about this.
Not be negative about the prospects of Philippine politics, but the people have grown tired of expecting too much from their leaders. Heck, we will just go throught the motions of elections. The common mindset: let’s elect a president who could do the least harm.
Mar Roxas may not necessarily be the best. But he could be the least worst.
yeah..mar roxas as the president and corina the bitch sanchez as the first lady…sounds good…bagay na bagay hehehe
And then, there is governor panlilio, who announced recently that he will run if he discovers that presidency-2010 is “… the will of God” for him.
well we could always support an idealist..say Gen Danny Lim perhaps?
nge!
I worked for, or rather, with Mar Roxas when he was a DTI Sec.
One word: “showbiz” (my first impression of him in DTI. And gawd, this was way before he shacked up with the Korina).
Or two, in many words: just another aristocrat-born, technocrat-trained, out-of-touch Pinoy politician who’ll actually just toy with the position but act as if he’s in earnest. What a darn funny thing do during the anti-chaha rally: cuss as if that would establish to the public that he’s earnest or connecting. I bet 100% he wouldn’t have cussed if he weren’t eyeing the top post. Dun pa lang, rating for authenticity is zero na. LOL.
Villar is much, much better than him. The right heart (just like Erap, but not as vacuous intellectually).
Sen. Mar Roxas was a good sport for exposing himself to such a motley crue. I congratulate him for bravery in the face of bloggers like me who are essentially merciless with demonstrably wrong arguments, (even our own). If he hedged on his answers and seemed to be sitting on the fence, making the sounds and sense of hemming and hawing, whilst offering mainly defensible, deniable, malleable, explainable, fudgeable–safe positions–it might be because he sensed how easily, even breezily, these bloggers interpellated and debated with him. As if they really knew what they were talking about.
By the way, those shots he was parrying weren’t just coming from me, as the record would surely show, for many others there were pummeling the good Senator with questions and ripostes that only fellow bloggers would recognize as long-held, well thought through, and honed in battles strewn across a dozen incandescent comment threads. Whilst my own jabs were of the most gentle and persuasive kind… Who, for example was pounding the good senator on the reproductive health bill while discussing his private life?
I am just as impressed then with his blogger-interrogators who showed they could ably spar with a Senator wanting to be President, to test his mental mettle, to challenge his wits, match him stride for stride, spark for spark, in the race for membership in an aristocracy of the heart and mind. He seemed to appreciate the company and the practice rounds in the Lonely Ring long before the bout bell sounds.
In my blogging and interactions with the candidates, I want to bring out the best in them, not the worst. Sometimes of course, this requires a can opener…
Sparks,
you know we disagree on many things— between Hamas and Israel, on free will and free markets and all that but on this we stand on common ground:
i agree with sparks, mar roxas is not it. he is more showbiz (agree with madonna) than nationalist — that is, from what any one can tell, given that (like djb tells) mar (like all candidates) tends to fence-sit and take safe positions…
what we dont have is a candidate who dares step up and offer us an alternative future in very specific terms, especially about the economy. what policies would s/he change to protect us longterm from the effects of the global recession? what policies need changing to bridge the yawning gap between the few rich and the countless poor…
of course like mar the other candidates will fence-sit and take safe positions. iwas pusoy. masyado pang maaga para makipagbanggaan sa simbahan at sa mga kapwa-nila-mayaman. that, or, god forbid, these candidates just might not have anything new to offer — no vision, no sense of proportion, no pulse.
Try Trillanes or BF. Either one can promise to bring “Change to RP”.
To Miss caffeine_sparks, based on your blog entry, it seems that your main objection to Mar wasn’t his ‘political’ style of answering, but simply that you didn’t agree with his answers. I may be wrong.
And although just a metaphor, your talk of ‘jumping off a building’ for a political leader as actually being a good thing implies or betrays your idea that people should ideally belong to and die for the state. Which is quite sad.
just wondering if any of the bloggers remembered to ask roxas whatever happened to his “plan” to put jun lozada under polygraph test for the latter’s testimony in the nbn-zte investigation by the senate. not that it will make much difference on roxas’ fitness for the presidency, but his failure to follow through could be an indication of insincerity or second-rate showmanship.
btw, i remember listing this when somebody here (was it you ding, or nick?), asked not too long ago for possible question to ask roxas.
Polygraph like paraffin test is not acceptable in court. Ooooops! I forgot! FlipLand is still mired in medieval technology that Amerikanos has junked light-years ago.
So, this igno foreign-educated-ivy-school-graduate gung-gong Mar Roxas was involved in NBN-ZTE invistigation. So he's an accessory to bungling this invistigation out in the public to telegraph what they have found out so GMA would know her next move. In your side of America, Bencard, they wouldn't even give a hint what they have found out so as not to jeopardize invistigation and prosecution. In our side of FlipLand anything goes and pekeng-peryodistas are even ignorante about it! And they claimed to be 4th Estados!!!
Korina Sanchez is a certified pekeng-peryodista. She needs to answer me why she signed-off on Ces Drilon News Blackout. I need to know why she kept mum on MBC invistigation on Glorieta bombing; Ayala's insistence it was a terrorist act despite findings of scientific Americans and brothers of your God, Jesus Christ, the Israeli Mossad; and so many questions that you and I need to know.
So this is a union of the gung-gongs. Corrupt idiot Mar Roxas and pekeng-peryodista Korina Sanchez.
We're Doopmed!!!!!
I need to know, too, from foreign-educated-ivy-skool-graduate gung-gong Mar Roxas why they didn't subpwena Lozada's hotel for phonecalls he made. How long, who he called. Also restaurant tabs, how many people where he entertaining? The frequency? ON PHP500,000 ON THE RUN MONEY? Who are they trying to fool? __
Mar Roxas's qualifications to lead this country are just as authentic as his de-padyak campaign ad.
Unfortunately, the masses, who love Kris Aquino & Game KNB, who believe Jun Lozada is now a hero, who actually think Korina Sanchez is fair and impartial, will surely fall for such obvious contrivance. If I may quote Jessica Zafra, "We're surrounded by morons."
For the rest of us, let's just remember:
"Never vote for; always vote against!" I always say.
How can Mar Roxas lead a country while sexually molesting Korina Sanchez every night? Don't you know that men think 1,000 more times about sex than leading the people?
I want a woman in Malacanang! She has our welfare on her mind instead of sex!