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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider Campaigning

Campaigning

Published Apr 11, 2025 04:08 pm

MEDIUM RARE

Jullie Y. Daza

 

Eighteen regions. More than 7,000 islands. And 68.43 million voters to reach.


If you have the spine and the stomach, do you have the funds? Campaign, it rhymes with pain.


At our once-a-month lunch, 2025 senatorial candidate Greg “Gringo” Honasan, former senator and cabinet secretary, was so prim and proper that he did not mention how his campaign was going in a national election where, as some candidates have observed, money is obscenely being flashed left, right, center, forward and backward.


Although the difficult and expensively paved road to victory is nothing new to Greg, every day of the campaign period is an exciting change for him. Everywhere he goes, in a restaurant, at the mall, people remember him, recognize him, ask to pose for pictures with him. What platform is he standing on, what promises is he making?


“Security” in one word. In a few more words, national defense, peace and order, the West Philippine Sea, food security, a secure future for our children.  
It has been years since Gringo left the spotlight as one of 24 senators and then as head of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, but like fellow soldier Ping Lacson, he’s saying that another run, another round of duty as a public servant can only be good for the soul. Oh yes, he’s in touch with his brods.


Like the two ex-soldiers, I’d like to know if today’s voters are any different in their aspirations for peace and prosperity in the world, and not only in the world covered by the United Nations. Talk about the UN, and my mind goes back to 1970, when I spent two weeks in a classmate’s penthouse in Beirut, where UN peacekeepers in their uniforms with the sky-blue insignia and berets were posted at practically every street corner.


The sight of those soldiers made the UN very real to me. But because we are lucky to be blessed with peace and security in this corner of the world, we tend to take membership in a club as huge as the UN for granted. Long ago, we even had a personality contest to choose a Miss UN Philippines every year.  

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