The catch phrase on the billboard of one presidential aspirant says it all. “We need a leader.”
As the May national and local elections draw near, however, the key question becomes, what kind of a leader do we need?
There is a common notion that Filipinos, being a factious people, need a strong, unifying leader who can stand up to the push and pull of various factions and disparate interests and deal with Southeast Asia’s longest-running insurgency.
Of course, this is the mentality that gave us the current President, and the kind of thinking that gave us 14 years of one-man rule that began in 1972. Certainly, we ought to have learned something from our experiences—but perhaps a short checklist will help jog our collective memory and help us elect the kind of leader we really need. By now, all the presidential aspirants will have developed some kind of a track record, so it will not be too difficult to assess them according to these qualities.
1) The leader must keep promises. The next president must not promise one thing, and say he or she was only joking when it comes time to deliver on the promise. The next president cannot promise to fix our problems in six months—then come back after that time and say more time is needed. A true leader should not feign the lack of interest in a leadership position, then “agree” to run to appease his or her followers.
2) The leader must have true courage. Our next leader must be able to face the consequences of a hard choice and not run away, like a fugitive, from difficult situations. The next president must also be able to stand up to powerful neighbors who preach peace and friendship while stealing our territory and trampling on our sovereignty.
3) The leader must be intelligent. The time for believing that we can elect a popular but unqualified president and not suffer the consequences is over. This approach inevitably leaves us with a coterie of “advisers” and technocrats who may be more qualified than the elected leader, but who ultimately hold no official accountability. Our next leader must be able to communicate with the people intelligently and coherently, and not simply appeal to the lowest denominator to give off a populist air with the language of the gutter.
4) The leader must be honest. This means being free from any taint of corruption, but it also means being honest about the past. Our next president must be able to come to grips and reconcile actions taken in the past with present and future needs. Our next leader should not rewrite history or gloss over mistakes of the past because in a true democracy, facts matter. It is, after all, by looking back that we can confidently move forward.