Poe tells 2016 bets: Respect voters; don’t turn campaign into circus

Senator Grace Poe.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

She might be from an adoptive family of show business royalties, but Senator Grace Poe is calling on fellow candidates not to transform their campaigns into a “circus.”

Poe, who is running for president in 2016, said candidates should not only rely on the “X-factor” called charisma.

“All leaders need charisma to lead, to inspire. But if you transform your campaign into a circus, you will just be taking away much of the people’s precious attention from the messages you want to convey,” she said in a statement on Monday.

READ: Stories, not issues, drive campaigns

Being the adoptive daughter of showbiz royalties late actor Fernando Poe Jr. and veteran actress Susan Roces, Poe said she would “want the Filipino electorate to appreciate me for what my presidential plans are, hear what they need and propose immediate solutions to these while on the campaign trail.”

This is the same reason why, she said, she favors televised debates among the presidential candidates.

READ: People’s needs, not surveys, guiding her, says Grace Poe

“That way, we can remove all the pomp and pageantry that are usually seen at campaign sorties and allow the voters to see and hear for themselves how we will be able to handle the country’s problems,” said Poe.

She then urged her fellow candidates for the 2016 national elections to “give more respect to the electoral process and the Filipino voter” and “blaze a trail for a new kind of political contest that is centered on platforms of government.”

“Campaigns should be caravans of intellectual discourse and meetings of the mind. Let’s show the stuff we are made of, what we want to do for the country, what the people can expect from us,” she said.

The filing of certificates of candidacy (COCs) is expected to open the floodgates of nationwide sorties by at least four major candidates, which include Poe as the frontrunner in various presidential voter preference surveys. It will also usher in the election period that will be highlighted by the national elections in May next year.

There will also be at least six candidates who will run for vice president, including Poe’s running-mate, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, who has been leading the pre-election surveys.

“In this age of social media, more and more voters now have a wealth of information in their hands about what the candidates have to offer. And it is through the sorties that we, candidates, could reinforce all the knowledge and explain how we plan to give life and blood to the advocacies in the positions we will be elected to,” Poe further said. IDL