01583: Nancy Binay Is Only A Distraction

With the 2013 Philippine Mid-Term Elections less than 2 days away, it sort of amazes me how much attention Nancy Binay continues to command across various social media channels. And this is not about her being a popular candidate (which based on the surveys she is) but more than her detractors remain focused on saturating almost every waking moment of our lives to remind us why she's unqualified and why people shouldn't vote her.

We all get it - she has no true experience serving in an actual government position. Yes, she's just a puppet of her father's larger political dynasty machine. But hey, have we forgotten to look at all the other candidates as well? Why is everyone so determined to join in the Nancy Binay mud-slinging campaign when there are many other politicians running this year who are equally deserving of scrutiny and criticism? Why are we allowing ourselves to be distracted by the Nancy Binay hate machine?

Bam Aquino may have been a youth leader, but he has no true government or legislative experience to speak of. But because of his name, he is able to immediately compete for a national position instead of working his way up the ladder on the local level. Add in the fact that he used to appear on television (and amazingly resembles Ninoy Aquino), and it seems that we're all politely ignoring him since his uncle is the president and he represents one of the most powerful political families in the country.

The main component in Bro. Eddie Villanueva's political experience involves the fact that he has run for president twice before and obviously lost both times. Sure, he's a major leader in a religious group, but we're not supposed to think of them a being political, right?

Grace Poe is, well, Grace Poe. Have we forgotten how inexperienced she is? And all she really has going for her is that she got to act like a censor for two years than she was off to run for senator. In a way, she has even less experience than Nancy Binay.

The bulk of the administration party consists of dynastic politicians and traditional politicians. Heck, they even have a rebel in the form of Antonio Trillanes IV (remember Oakwood AND the Manila Peninsula), but it's all okay now since President Nonoy made sure to pardon him first even though the Supreme Court never cleared him of his involvement in the insurrection attempts. The opposition party isn't any different given they too have a rebel on the bench and their own share of dynastic personalities perpetuating their families control of various aspects of Philippine government.

And yet most people only seem to be harping on Nancy Binay. Yes, she's a lousy candidate - but you know what? Ironically enough she has more political experience than Kris Aquino! Her lifelong "OJT" as the personal assistant to her parents has little to no difference from all those privileged kids who hold honorary titles in the family business that ultimately lead to "COO" or "Child of Owner". I'm not saying all people involved in family businesses are unqualified to run for public office. However we have to concede that it's hard to determine their precise degree of experience since it has gotten all muddied by the fact that the work isn't as well-documented as other jobs.

The Elections are on Monday. I conducted my analysis of the candidates shortly after the campaign period began and I still don't feel like there's a candidate that I want to throw my full support behind. For those of you who have not done any serious thinking about who you're going to vote for, you have the rest of this weekend to do so. And as RuPaul would say, Don't fuck it up.