Mental Health: 1992 and 2010 Election Campaign, Noynoy, Miriam Defensor and that Paid Hack

I just got up from bed from a late afternoon siesta and took a quick drag of cigarette in the kitchen when unmindfully I failed to take notice that I was already grinning from ear to ear over a delayed realization concerning the campaign strategy in this 2010 May National Election. It was like an enlightenment of some sort, kind of Satori, a heightened awareness of a vision that is more of a rendezvous with the past. I could not help but smile and say to myself: Not again.

The vision or the memory brought me back to the 1992 Presidential Election. It was the time when a brave, articulate, intelligent young woman with the name of Mirriam Defensor Santiago came into fame for her no non-sense kind of administrative leadership. Ms Defensor was something that we young people then wanted our next president to be: gutsy and with a lot of doze of political will to crush all the disease in the national government.

Ms Defensor on the onset of the election campaign was the obvious favorite. She was ahead of the pack that it would almost take a miracle to beat her in the election. She was the voice of the youth then. She was the favorite in every big and prestigious universities in Manila and the whole archipelago.

Then a political strategy, brought about by the usual mudslinging, sprout out of nowhere. There was an issue with Ms Defensor; she was insane and suffered a nervous breakdown during her younger years. Now, this issue of mental health is something Ms. Defensor failed to fight intelligently. Because of having a short-temper and impatience to hear this issue thrown at her, she committed the mistake by folding-up to the pressure when several campaign sorties in universities made her shout at a student who was asking a question.

Now back to the future which is now. Noynoy definitely and without doubt is the favorite and it would take a miracle to beat him in the national election. That is not a product of the imagination but the truth. Now if you are a political strategist and lessons need to squeeze between your ears is something on how to beat a candidate who is evidently leading the survey what should you think or make as a good model? The 1992 Presidential Election no doubt. And I think the thinktanks of a political candidate just thought of it.

And what is making me grin and almost laugh to the symmetry of the situation in these elections is the same participation of one columnist who then had also weaved stories about the so-called insanity of Ms. Defensor and who right now had just created a seamless story about the mental condition of Noynoy. I cannot forget this columnist. I just know now that she is really a paid hack comes election time. Check Philstar.com for her column.