Column: “Mabuting tao“

A winning example from the past might have a lesson for the political opposition. This week’s column, published on July 20, 2021.

If memory serves me right, Vicente “Ting” Paterno ran for the Senate in 1987 on a simple campaign theme. While his track record was clear and clean, it was also complicated; he had served as a minister in Ferdinand Marcos’ presidential-parliamentary Cabinet, before becoming an independent assemblyman, then Metro Manila chair of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, then one of “Cory’s Candidates” for the Senate.

His campaign poster cut, or melted, that Gordian knot of complication with a warm but also accurate slogan: “Ting Paterno. Mabuting tao.”

As I have argued before, Cory Aquino had the longest coattails in Philippine history; in that first election for the Senate since the fall of the Marcos regime, 22 of her 24 candidates won. Paterno was one of the non-politicians who rode those same coattails; like them, he also had an impressive personal reputation, backed by a sterling curriculum vitae, that recommended him to the voter. In 1987, the only time he ran for national office, 9.6 million voters cast their ballot for him.

I am reminded of this virtually forgotten moment in history because it might have something to say to us today. Ten months before the first vote is cast, I’ll step out on a limb (again), and suggest that the 2022 elections will be about change.