Choosing the best candidate before he grows old and we miss our chance

In the wake of the public uproar over the dismissal of the petition for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, the Supreme Court may try to change public perception by considering the practical wisdom of lowering the age limit for presidential candidates. Given the rut we are in, I see nothing wrong with having Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto lead this country, which won’t happen if he can’t run for president in 2028. This is not some self-serving premature political campaigning because personally, we will get nothing from the Pasig mayor being voted as president that every Filipino will not also get—a leadership with the wisdom and idealism of youth, and a clean reputation to inspire us and uplift a nation’s sagging spirit.

The minimum age limit of 40 years for a Filipino citizen to be able to run for president is almost a bridge too far for Sotto. Born June 17, 1989, he may not run for president until after he turns 40 in June 2029. By then, the presidential election will have been over and there will be five more years to go before he finally gets his chance to run as a qualified candidate. But then, the extreme urgency and desperation of the times, coupled with the Filipino voters’ inherent fickle-mindedness in making political decisions, indicate that we cannot wait that long. It’s now or never. I’d rather that we bend the rules a little bit than choose the next president from among the VP, Speaker Martin Romualdez, Sen. Francis Escudero, Sen. Robinhood Padilla, Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno, former senator Manny Pacquiao, and not surprisingly, to end up choosing no one at all.

Let’s not wait for Sotto to grow old and lose the very idealism that makes him the most qualified person for the job. If contemporary history is anything to go by, our experience with relatively young leaders has been a pleasant one. Ramon Magsaysay, the youngest and most beloved Philippine president, was only 46 when he took office, but his presidency was ended by a plane crash. Noynoy Aquino, born in 1960, was a young 50-year-old when he became president in 2010. It also helped that as a bachelor, he was free of marital obligations. He went on to become arguably our best post-war president. As if to symbolize the superiority of the young against the old, Aquino was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte, the oldest Philippine president at 70. These two are as different as night and day. To compare one with the other is to take your pick between apples and rotten apples.

The sad truth is, unless something is done, Sotto will miss the 2028 presidential election by one year, as he would be only 39 then. It won’t be such a difficult task for magistrates and legal luminaries to find the solution to bridge the one-year gap with a constitutional amendment because ,as they say, if there’s a will, there’s a way. If the law was bent for Padilla to escape a life term for illegal possession of firearms while the plunder cases of former presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and of senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla wilted under the extreme liberality of legal interpretation, Sotto’s one-year deficiency from the presidential age should deserve more consideration.

The longer it takes, the bigger the risk of losing his high public approval because Sotto, even as we speculate on the future, is struggling to navigate the muddy and treacherous paths of the present political landscape. Along the way, many dangerous political alliances and compromises will have to be made and just as many life-changing encounters will happen. Let’s take a chance with Sotto; while he’s young, while he’s single. Because if he is not corrupted by politics, he can be completely changed by a million different things, like love and its promise of personal happiness. Nothing can make you stray from your path than when the heart starts beating for something else.

ADEL ABILLAR,

atty.adel@gmail.com