This article was taken from my Tabulas blog.Â
HEAVEN OR GIL: Who is the Lesser Moron?
Posted at 05:14 am
Exhibit A:
Description: A yellow-loving televangelist (*gasp*) who invokes the name of ‘god’ in everything he does and is also a frustrated necromancer.
Exhibit B:
Description: An utterly ridiculous bald man with an even more ridiculous wig.
Among the six hopefuls for the Presidency this year, these two specimens have probably conjured the most curiosity from the voting population. Though some people may argue that these two presidentiables are worlds apart, I would like to prove that Eddie Villanueva and Eddie Gil are not that much different when you measure them up on yardsticks that are not moving close to the speed of light.
Eduardo Villanueva was a former Law Student/communist who claims to have found ‘god’. Due to his sudden change of heart and new calling in life, he decided to start his own charismatic organization - Jesus is Lord. Though he has projected himself as a very level-headed and logically-sound individual by cloaking himself with his educational attainment and ‘leadership skills’, Villanueva – who all of the sudden is everybody’s brother — has been severely inconsistent when it comes to the teachings of his creed and the basic rules of reason.
To be honest, my being atheism not withstanding, I was really considering him as one of my possible choices for the Presidency – if the elections were in March, I would have voted for him. Obviously, it wasn’t his spiritual allure that convinced me that he was the man for the job. Villanueva from my perspective in that time was somebody who was reasonably educated and ‘morally upright’ enough to at least not cause further detriments to the already struggling government. I saw him as something that comes across as the candidate that had no great shakes. He wasn’t exactly the Messiah, but the preservation of the status quo would have been the worst-case scenario.
Or so I thought…
And then, like a blinding flash of the obvious, it dawned upon me what kind of a Presidential candidate Eddie Villanueva is. Villanueva – who promised a very positive campaign on the onset — criticized the government heavily for corruption, accused the administration for a scouting for a namesake of his to steal his votes and worst of all, severely deviated from the moral high road that he himself has promised to take. In spite of my atheism, I find nothing wrong about religious leaders running for the presidency as long as they can prove their worth as a public servant.
What has Villanueva has done is to give nothing but banner statements and ‘platforms’ that contain nothing along the lines of a punitive mechanism. What makes him absolutely irresistible to those who voted and supported him is his supposed ‘connection’ to the Messiah and how he himself can be the ‘messiah’ with the help of ‘god’ himself. He has absolutely linked himself to much to ‘god’ to the point that he has made himself almost infallible. To prove this, he was even quoted to have equated the love for ‘god’ and a person’s support for him. I don’t know about you, but if I were a Christian, I wouldn’t like a man to purposely twist the word and image of ‘god’ just to forward one’s political intentions. It’s an outrage. I would even say it’s almost an act that insults the very core values of the religion itself. This just proves that Villanueva has not been true to his ‘god’. He was supposed to be an instrument to effect change and revitalize the Filipino people but in the end, he became someone who use the name of ‘god’ to gain votes and support.
And no, this is not the first time that Villanueva has done this. Back in the 1998 Presidential Campaign, he transformed a normal prayer rally into a proclamation sortie for Lakas-CMD presidentiable Jose de Venecia without notifying the faithful who showed up who expected an evening of sing and praise for their ‘god’. Instead, Villanueva used the occasion to anoint de Venecia as god’s candidate.
Now that his integrity is a foregone issue, let’s see how Villanueva’s platform fails to make sense. The basis of Villanueva’s battle cry is simple – destroy the mechanism of corruption. How exactly? Well, he cited this in his ten point plan to stop corruption – the purging of ‘ghost’ government employees, the regular assessment of public officials’ lifestyles and the definite ban on nepotism when it comes to his appointees. What’s so wrong about the picture? Well, the first two are already in happening in the status quo while the last just implies that he think his relatives and in-laws have the tendency to be corrupt. Does that solve anything? I’ll you a clue, the answer to the query has two letters. It starts with N and ends with O.
Also another important issue in Villanueva’s plan for his reanimated Philippines is ‘moral regeneration’. Though I’ve already proven that he’s not as spotless as he seems, the man has just not yet done worse things like corrupt practices, murders or self-inflicted brain atrophy to be unpalatable to the moralistas and the conservative sector of society. So… that’s finally a good point for Villanueva, right? Once again, the answer is not yes. Though Villanueva maybe a very popular figure in the born again community, the Roman Catholic Church leaders have long sneered at his very culturally-insensitive pot shots at the idolatrous traditions of the congregation of the majority. With this conflict arising between the two religious organizations, the ability of Villanueva to effect change is immensely diminished. In the end, he will be nothing but a Pariah – which is by the way, a VERY VERY GOOD BAND.
Now, is there anyway that Villanueva could be worse than the OTHER EDDIE? On the standards of being able to think straight, it might seem like Villanueva steers clear of being labeled as a moronic self-appointed messiah but due to his recent comments, he puts himself in a very competitive race against Eddie Gil. Eddie Gil has long given us his platforms that have become small talk fodder nowadays and his claims of being a multi-trillionaire. That would have made Gil the winner by a gazillion miles, but Villanueva just doesn’t want to be outdone. He first accused the Arroyo administration to have used Eddie Gil to make him lose votes and then after election day claim that he was missing ten million votes.
Now that makes the race a little bit more interesting, doesn’t it? First, Eddie Villanueva’s supporters probably a hundred times the grey matter of the regular FPJ supporter so it is unlikely that they will write ‘Eddie’ instead of the televangelist’s full name on the ballot. The second accusation I think more than carries him over the hump and make him the runaway winner. The only logical reason for him to lose ten million votes is because ten million people deemed him unfit for the presidency – plain and simple. If Fernando Poe Jr. depended on his name recall and popularity, Villanueva relied heavily on people’s gullibility. His campaign rested on how many people would feel like they were voting for god’s candidate according to god’s plan. Sadly, more than two million people did become unwitting punch lines to the joke that was Eddie Villanueva.
Yes, Eddie Gil is the lesser moron. Unlike Villanueva, Gil strategically planned his presidential bid to make an entry to the very lucrative field of showbiz and novelty music – a few more pesos to add to his trillions won’t hurt right? Villanueva on the other hand has just sounded like a ridiculous self-righteous self-appointed messiah who conjures the name of ‘god’ to entice voters. It isn’t only moronic – it’s cheap.
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