Don’t curse the ‘bobotantes.’ Expose the crooks among their favorite candidates

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. announced during the Alyansa Para Sa Bagong Pilipinas Convention the other week the senatorial slate of the administration for the 2025 midterm elections. In the slate are Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, Makati City Mayor Abby Binay, Senators Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Francis Tolentino, Imee Marcos, and Bong Revilla, former senators Manny Pacquiao, Ping Lacson, and Tito Sotto, Deputy Speaker Camille Villar, and former Social Welfare and Development Secretary Erwin Tulfo. He called on them to maintain their honesty and love for the country.

That call was uncalled for. All 12 nominees are or have been high-ranking government officials. They are presumed to have proven their honesty and love of country. Asking them to remain honest and true to the country suggests doubt on the part of the President about their integrity and patriotism.

Asked by a broadcast political commentator what he thought of President Marcos’ nominees for the Senate, former Senate President Franklin Drilon said it is composed of people who can sing or dance. In another interview with another TV talk show host, he described the slate as a hodgepodge of personalities driven by name recall.

It was a frank putdown of the administration’s candidates for the Senate. He has a basis for his low assessment of them. He spent many years in the Senate with half of the nominees.

Netizens’ reactions are just as disparaging. Here are some comments about the lineup in social media:

• Lord, have mercy on us Filipinos

• A senatorial ticket just right for the bobotantes*

• Comebacking trapos

• New alliance, old politicians

• Multiple dynasties in the making

• Government service turned into family business

• The list of candidates voters should not vote for

• A bunch of showbiz people

• A slate that discourages one to vote

• San Lorenzo Ruiz, San Pedro Calungsod,  save us Filipinos from opportunists

I understand the disappointment, nay dismay, even disdain of the more discerning citizens over the administration’s candidates for senator. The Senate is that assembly of people mandated to enact laws and enunciate national policies that promote the people’s welfare, empower the poor and weak, stimulate economic growth, institute good governance, promote the rule of law, strengthen democracy, protect the environment and the nation’s rich cultural heritage, and build an equitable, prosperous, and orderly society.

The Senate is usually referred to as the “august body.” Pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, august means majestic, dignified, imposing. When I was in college in the latter half of the 1950s, I would go to the Senate during semestral and summer breaks to listen to the debates on the Senate Hall. The Senate was indeed majestic, dignified, and imposing for it was composed of erudite and eloquent men like Claro M. Recto, Jose P. Laurel, Lorenzo Tanada, Camilo Osias, Quintin Paredes, Jesus Mariano Cuenco — statesmen all.

Not anymore as it is now populated by people with popular names, popularity gained as a movie actor or television show host. Next year the Senate will likely be overpopulated with such people. The Pulse Asia survey conducted in September indicates that eight of Bongbong’s nominees will be elected senators in 2025. They are Tulfo, Sotto, Cayetano, Binay, Revilla, Lacson, Pacquiao, and Marcos — the hodgepodge of personalities driven by name recall, as former Senate President Drilon described them.

The Senate will actually be that next year if the discerning voters just stand by and watch the bobotantes excitedly and gleefully cast their votes for their singing and dancing idols. They can choose to tell the bobotantes the kind of persons their idols are — not fit to be in the Senate.

If a candidate is a thief or a vicious person, then the voting public should be told about him or her. Without negative campaigns, voters would not have full information about the candidates. No candidate will say anything negative about himself.
But the deliberate spreading of such information must be motivated by the honest desire of the campaigner to warn others against the negative impact on society of the election to public office of a dubious character. Negative campaigns undertaken by neutral non-partisan organizations like the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches or the Management Association of the Philippines would be most effective.

In 1995, just four years after he returned from his exile in Hawaii, Bongbong Marcos ran for senator. The remnants of the civil society group formed to fight for political reforms following Ninoy Aquino’s assassination waged a vigorous campaign against his election to the Senate. They portrayed him in comic books as nothing but a lazy boy who lived fabulously abroad on money stolen by his parents. He failed to land one of the 12 Senate seats to be filled up. He placed at only No. 16.

During the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada in 2000, Senators Robert Jaworski, Blas Ople, Juan Ponce Enrile, Miriam Santiago, Nikki Coseteng, Tessie Oreta, Gregorio Honasan, John Osmeña, Ramon Revilla, Sr., Francisco Tatad, and Tito Sotto voted not to open an envelope believed to contain evidence so damning to the President that people thought it would lead to his conviction and consequent removal from office. The “No” vote of the 11 senators saved Estrada from conviction. But the people were so infuriated by the blatant display of cowardice by 11 senators that they took it upon themselves to chase Estrada out of Malacañang.

Civil society groups also made the spineless senators — mnemonically remembered by the first letter of their surnames as JOE’S COHORTS but derisively branded as The Craven Eleven — pay for their cowardice by campaigning against their re-election. As The Craven Eleven were elected to the Senate in different years, they ran for re-election in different elections. Except for Revilla, who chose not to run again, each of the other 10 craven senators was repudiated at the polls the next time he or she ran for senator.

In June 2005, when audio recordings of a phone conversation between President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about rigging the 2004 presidential elections were made public, the minority members of the House of Representatives initiated impeachment proceedings against President Arroyo. But her allies blocked the move. Congressman Prospero Pichay said there was nothing wrong with President Arroyo talking to Commission on Elections officials as all candidates talk to them to protect their votes.

In August of that year, Environment Secretary Mike Defensor called on Congress to review and authenticate all versions of the supposed recordings of the alleged conversation, which had come to be known as the “Hello Garci Scandal.” He had stressed the tapes might have been made to appear that Mrs. Arroyo and the election official she was supposedly talking to at the other end of the line were planning to rig the results of the May 10, 2004 presidential election.

Pichay and Defensor ran for senator in 2007 under the TEAM Unity coalition backed by the Arroyo administration. Again, civil society groups banded together and campaigned actively against the two saviors of the discredited Arroyo.

In 2012, the surveys on voter preferences showed senatorial candidate Juan Ponce Enrile among those likely to be elected to the Senate in 2013.  At one time, he ranked No. 4 in the opinion polls. Survey respondents must have thought it was Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile who was running for re-election. It was his son Jack who was running.

As the son of a very powerful man during the Martial Law years, Jack had developed a notorious reputation growing up —that of Bad Boy. Afraid that a bad boy would be elected to the Senate, former school mates and friends of those he had crossed during his younger years dug up his past and fed the media sordid stories about him.

When survey respondents realized that the Juan Ponce Enrile they had expressed a preference for was the “bad boy” son of the old man of the Senate, Jack’s ranking in the opinion polls started to plunge. He placed 15th in the Senate race of 2013.

So, citizens for good government, don’t curse the bobotantes. Expose the crooks and the opportunists among the favorites of the bobotantes.

*Bobotante is used to refer to misguided voters. It is a portmanteu of “bobo” or “stupid” and “botante” or “voter.”

Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. has been a keen observer of Philippine politics since the late 1950s.