Episode 18: The senate race is like an episode of Celebrity Apprentice

The Senate race has gone to new depths. From a Spratlys Island jet skiing by Otso Diretso to penis size comparisons between the president and Jim Paredes, and shirt stripping by SAP Bong Go to prove he has no tattoos in his back, and not a member of a drug gang. We’re no longer talking about the issues. It has gotten ugly really quickly.

We’ve forgotten what this election is meant to be about. As in every election we are meant to be discussing the key question: what should the role of government be in our lives?

In our last episode, we looked at the senate race of 2019, and saw how much of it was driven by personality and not principles. We said that a general trend in all senate races since 1987 was the popularity contest that it has become. This is evidenced by the growing number of celebrities or celebrity-related candidates that are present in the senate. So how do we make our senate more representative, instead of mimicking an episode of Celebrity Apprentice?

Show notes available here.

Episode 17: Otso Diretso, MaBaGoKoTo, Hugpong, atbp.

The countdown to election day begins.

We are now about 30 days away from the 2019 midterms. In this episode we’ll be looking at the senate race, and how that has been unfolding. We compare the competing candidates' platforms, namely Otso Diretso's campaign platform and PDP-Laban's.

When you put the two parties’ positions side-by-side there is a clear contrast between them, both in terms of their overarching philosophies and approach to governance and development. Those who say that this election isn’t about ideas are wrong. There are clear battle lines here, and they are not just personality-driven.

Get the transcripts of the show from here.

Erratum: in counting the number of senators that became VP, I mistakenly included Mar Roxas in the list.