Scylla and Charybdis.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Isagani A. Cruz

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Fernando Poe Jr., the King of Philippine Movies, are the front-runners in the current presidential race, according to the surveys. The country will face a bleak future whoever of them wins.

GMA appears to be better prepared both as to intellectual endowments and political experience. But her performance so far as accidental President, coupled with her choice of two paltry actors in her senatorial ticket, leaves many people in doubt about her eligibility.

She is now being attacked for using the resources of the government to advance her candidacy. It is claimed that her supposed inspection trips all over the country are campaign sorties financed with public funds. Her expensive propaganda extolling her virtues consists of full-page advertisements, television and radio commercials and billboards all over the land also at government expense.

Principally because of her high-pressure salesmanship, she has won a lot of support even from the masa that was originally indifferent to her. Part of this change may be due to her distribution to them of many goodies like the PhilHealth cards. And there are also her cheap stunts like wearing ethnic attire and eating with her fingers to prove that she is like the indigenous people.

FPJ is a high school dropout who has no political experience or credible platform. I have two grandchildren, aged 9 and 8, who can speak better English than he can. English is now a universal language, but it is practically Greek to Poe. President Poe, if elected, will have to make do with his Tagalog in official communications with other heads of state.