Choosing a President

CHOOSING A PRESIDENT

by Antonio C. Antonio

November 5, 2014

Let us assume that it’s 2016 and you were to vote another candidate to be the President of the Philippines.  Three candidates surfaced to ask for your vote.  How do you qualify your vote?  How do you differentiate the candidates to come up with the best choice?

Let’s draw a matrix to show their character, personality, track record and even their idiosyncrasies. 

(Before reading further, please compare the three candidates from the accompanying image and try coming up with a choice.)

It is often said that the perceived ideal in the minds of citizens on their choice of president is what they oftentimes do not get.  It remains to be a mere wish and has very little chance of becoming a reality.  It is hard to judge presidential candidates by their credentials.  Track records (of success or failure) are generally relative.  They are not absolute either.  There is no perfect politician too.  His professional background, experience and academic training may make him excel in a particular field but he may fail miserably in another.  There really are other critical factors to consider. 

Performance remains to be the most important yardstick.  However, performance can only be a measure after the presidential candidate is taken in and tested.  There really is no better test than in the real situations of stress, trouble and problems to separate the men from the boys. 

It is often said that “you can JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER”.  If we consider that track record and credentials to be the “covers” of people, we may be prone to make an error in judgment.  More often, the true worth of a politician/leader can be camouflaged by titles, degrees, citations and awards.  Field testing is critically necessary.  It is therefore better to “NEVER JUDGE A BOOK WHEN IT’S COVERED”.  Lastly, there is no fool-proof way to foresee performance based on credentials.  Largely, a great degree of “chance and risk-taking” must have to be made in choosing presidential candidates.  However, if training, experience and background are the only initial grounds in making a choice… generally though, these considerations (more often than not) lead to correct choices.

If you chose Candidate No. 1, you will vote for Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom; if you choose Candidate No. 2, you will vote for President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States; and, if you choose Candidate No. 3, you will vote for Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany. Who were these three “candidates”?  All three of them were powerful and influential world leaders in the 1940s.

If you were honest enough and selected your choice of candidate without (first) having encountered this matrix before or (second) having read the preceding paragraph, you would (most probably) have chosen Candidate No. 3.  That would be the same answer given by 99% of the people who examined the matrix.

It’s really hard to imagine that you had in mind Adolf Hitler in choosing a president.

Just my little thoughts…

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