It doesn't take a genius to figure out why politics is often compared to a circus where the politicians are the clowns. There's a lot of craziness that goes into political posturing and this becomes particularly evident during election season. And while this ridiculousness is pretty common across elections around the world, locally we seem to take particular pleasure in being asinine.
I won't dignify this week's headlines just yet - they're getting enough screen time as it is. I guess the easier comparison is how "birthers" challenged US President Obama's legitimacy to run for President based on what might be written on his birth certificate. In the Philippines we already have a standing challenge based on similar grounds a number of other headline-stealing challenges going back and forth between political contenders. Ladies and gentlemen, the clowns have already been sent it.
And while it's fun to make jokes about how all of our presidential candidates seem to be behaving like US Republican candidates (or maybe even Tea Party candidates), it really reflects how personality-based our elections are instead of being issues-based as you'd think they should be. So instead of challenging one another's plans for addressing income inequality or China's aggressive expansion in the region, we have efforts to challenge one another's credentials and other personal attacks. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
And people still wonder why I consciously abstain from voting.
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