Use your illusion

I remember half of the boys in my class standing up to declare their dream of becoming a president of the Republic of the Philippines someday. That was in 1976, during my first taste of public school as saling-pusa, being too young to be formally included in the grade one class.

Most of the girls wanted to become artistas, and I remember only some of them claimed dreaming of becoming nurses, doctors and lawyers.

My answer elicited laughter. I told the class I wanted to become an astronaut, the only one to do so in a class of Philippine presidents and artistas.

It was my childhood dream. My name was patented after Buzz Aldrin, who along with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, became the first men to set foot on the moon.

I remember the class bully howled: “Go to the States,” obviously referring to the US, where not even 10 percent of that public school class may have set foot in their adult lives, although I believe most of them are still entertaining thoughts of settling there someday — courtesy of their children, perhaps — who may or may not become astronauts as I once dreamed of becoming when I was really young.

Perhaps, my classmates thought I was not only dreaming but having an illusion, as if becoming president of a republic then very much under martial rule was not.

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was the star of every show then, with only a handful willing and daring to challenge him, and all them were detained, tortured and one was killed while returning home.

Maybe that explains why we do not run out of people, mostly being tagged as loonies, who file certificates of candidacy for the most coveted positions whenever the Commission on Elections starts to accept them.

Yesterday, I even got a ribbing from Ferdinand Agena, a college colleague who more than qualifies for the mayoralty of his town in Batangas, who asked if I managed to beat the Comelec deadline, the last days “reserved” for the “more serious” candidates.

He may have expected my simple reply: “I do not entertain such an illusion,” that my friend’s curt self no longer bothered to add to the jibe.

A television crew panned at the white board listing “applicants” for the presidency numbered a little over 50, if my aging eyes did not deceive me. It is expected to be trimmed down to just a few when the final reckoning comes, with those expected to survive the final “massacre” bearing names too familiar for many of us to ignore, while the rest will be sidelined in history alongside Eddie Gil and Elly “Spike Boy” Pamatong.

Only about 10 would make it in the final list, majority of them political scions successfully riding their elders’ greatness, or representatives of the moneyed class who would soon forget their promises to the masses and the poor.

There would be the so-called “alternative candidates” whose chances depend only on the little money they have to be able to send their message across and be rightfully heard, that is if voters are willing and able to discern what are being promised them and not be swayed by what are being given them.

In the end, however, it is still money which will speak loudly and clearly.

While politics is admittedly local, local government leaders would act correspondingly with the largess they receive, both from the national coffers and from other candidates with more money to spend.

It is a circuitous journey that would take us back again to where we’ve been since democracy was said to have been re-introduced in 1986, when all these started but had failed to take Philippine politics to maturity.

It remains an illusion to see a perfect president soon. But one that is good enough will never be enough.

Some say they will vote for the so-called “lesser evil,” which, if we follow their analogy, is still evil. Or maybe because we cannot find the perfect choice, even from this 2010 set whose campaign slogans and promises seem fake and illusory.

But here in our country, it seems easier to become a president than an astronaut.

We’ve had more than our share of presidents, really.

Finding the right one, however, is like finding a tiny gem in the murky Pasig river.