Deafening absence at rallies

While each senator is expected to possess enough independence to make up his mind about a bill or anything that is being taken up on the Senate floor, he at the same time should be magnanimous enough to collaborate with his colleagues for the sake of the common good.

It was therefore disappointing to note the number of senatorial candidates from both the Liberal Party and the United Nationalist Alliance who stood up their party mates at their proclamation rallies in Cebu.

Candidates Cynthia Villar, Sen. Loren Legarda, Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara and Sen. Antonio Trillanes all sent proxies to the LP proclamation rally in Talisay City. Sen. Francis Escudero and Sen. Alan Peter were also absent.

Legarda, Escudero and Grace Poe did not attend UNA’s proclamation rally at Cebu City’s Plaza Independencia. For this, they recently got the boot from the opposition party of which they were guest candidates.

It was about time one or another group gave party-straddlers a lesson in political integrity. The people never for a moment thought sitting as candidate for the administration and the opposition amounted to pure pluralism.

Political butterflying in fact smacked as it always did of indecisiveness in terms of principles as well as brazen opportunism.

While any politician may argue that governance is not about rallies, many a voter cannot help but perceive a candidate’s refusal to attend a rally as patently prima donna.

Why take exception to hurdling a stage fellow candidates have to go through?

Absence at a rally where the full team is expected—a lapse of commitment in a small party matters—could easily translate to trivializing the common agenda in the Senate’s august halls.

Can we expect perfect attendance in the multi-party Senate’s sessions from a candidate who cannot even make time for his own party’s sortie?

Or can we more realistically expect otherwise urgent legislative work to grind slow as quorums cannot be established with senators traveling left and right on official business.

Worse, voters cannot help but perceive absence at a rally as a snub, not so much of the crowd as of the candidate’s opportunity to be seen, heard and even questioned by the public.

Every voter has the right to make informed decisions. When a candidate is not personally available to proffer or defend his platform a voter is deprived of the chance to ground his vote on deeper information.

Unless a strategist thinks voters should now start counting how many posters a candidate has in order to support the one with the greatest number of posters.

To promote informed decision-making among voters and to show their capability to compromise and build consensus with colleagues in case they get elected, senatorial aspirants should make themselves available in public forums.