For months, I have been asked who I would vote for in the coming elections. After enumerating the names of the different candidates and their different pluses and minuses, I had to say that I had not made up my mind.
Of the three front-runners in the Presidential race: Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar, and Gibo Teodoro, I found Gibo the most capable, not only because of his educational qualifications, but because of the way he had run the Department of National Defence. No nonsense. Professional!
On the other hand, I had always believed that Dick Gordon was the candidate who had the vision to make the real changes that our government needed. But for months, he hemmed and hawed and vacillated, making many of his supporters, who were not many to begin with, lose heart and jump to other camps.
Bayani Fernando was another person who captured my fancy. A resolute man who personified discipline in all his actions, he implemented the law, no matter what. And for this, he was called Hitler and Berdugo by those members of our society who insisted that they had the right to violate the law because of their poverty.
Both men built up impressive government careers on top of executive positions running their individual cities: Gordon at Olongapo, and Fernando at Marikina. Each made each city become examples of what a disciplined city should be: clean, progressive, crime-free and traffic-free. But because of the stubborn stick-to-it-iveness of both men, they lagged behind in the polls, if they registered at all.
But lo and behold, now both men have decided to join each other’s camps and make a run for the top two positions of our land. What do we do now?
A friend who is working on the Noynoy camp asked if I would support Gordon now that he had declared that he is running. My reply was simple: I still had to evaluate whether he could run a credible campaign because I didn’t want to waste my vote nor my support if he could not.
However, my daughter reminded me that if everyone took the same attitude as what I had voiced, where would the campaigns of good and credible candidates like Gordon and Bayani go? We would be stuck with Erap and his supposed support from the masa, and Noynoy and the sympathy support he was getting from the yellow Cory army.
That’s why I decided to write this letter. We all know Dick. For sure, he is not perfect. But compared to the other candidates, we know he is the most capable. It is now time for us to side with the RIGHT candidate, the one who can and will do the RIGHT thing for our country. Let us not support a candidate simply because the surveys tell us that he is the one who will most likely win. Let us choose the candidate who we think will be the best for our country. SUPPORT GORDON-FERNANDO IN 2010!
— Rafael Garcia III, Philippines (via email)