Go ahead and grill bets, Gordon urges electorate

Richard Gordon. EDWIN BACASMAS

MANILA, Philippines—General and sweeping promises made by candidates may sound sweet but voters should grill them on specifics to see if they are competent aspirants for public office, according to senatorial candidate Richard Gordon.

Gordon, who is running with the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), lamented that many candidates issued only general statements on their plans for the country, without explaining why their plans were important and how they would be carried out.

Gordon said the people should stop and wonder why, despite frequent elections, the country had not progressed as much as its neighbors.

“This is because the voters have been electing the wrong people,” he said.

Voters must ask for details in order to learn which of the candidates actually knows what they are talking about, said Gordon.

He urged voters to delve into specifics: Ask them how they are going to do that. That is when you will catch who is not competent, he told the Inquirer in an interview.

He also noted that candidates of the administration coalition Team PNoy tended to stay silent and let President Aquino do the talking for them. The President stands as the main endorser of the coalition ticket.

“Their silence was deafening on the Sabah issue,” said Gordon, referring to the conflict spawned by the incursion of the sultanate of Sulu’s royal army into Sabah.

Critics have slammed the President for mishandling the incident, antagonizing the sultan instead of talking to him.

According to Gordon, he tries to talk about specific issues and explain their importance when he goes around.

Mindanao projects

He said that for Mindanao, he saw many potential projects that the government could push in order to maximize infrastructure development and accelerate progress.

For instance, he said, there were many projects that could be spun off from the construction of the Laguindingan international airport in Misamis Oriental, which also serves Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities. He said the government should be setting aside land near the area and provide basic utilities, such as water and electricity, to encourage the establishment of businesses near the new airport.

When these businesses start coming in, the government should encourage educational institutions to take a look at the kinds of services and jobs that these establishments will need.  This way, the schools could make sure they offer the corresponding courses to the students, he said.

Earlier, the other UNA candidates insisted that they had been discussing specific issues and platforms on the campaign trail, even if they interspersed this with some dancing and singing to entertain the voters.

The Liberal Party-backed administration coalition has criticized UNA for resorting to such gimmicks.  The UNA candidates, on the other hand, pointed out that some of the administration candidates had taken to singing and dancing as well.

UNA’s Ernesto Maceda earlier said that dancing and singing were regular features of campaigns and were just meant to break the tedium, so that the voters would not get tired of listening to a succession of candidates speaking about their platforms and programs.