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Sunday, March 20, 2016

PiliPinas Debates (Visayas Round) - The Aftermath

The second round of the PiliPinas Debates was just held at the University of the Philippines - Cebu and it had a rather bumpy beginning as the debate did not begin until an hour later - due to a miscommunication between Vice President Binay and the producers of tonight's debates on whether he can bring notes to the debates or not.


As I write this blog entry, TV5 just aired the pre-debate footage which shows the presidential candidates Mar Roxas, Grace Poe and Rodrigo Duterte entertaining the audience while waiting for the arrival of Jejomar Binay (who was held back due to the miscommunication).

In the pre-debate footage, you can see Poe, Roxas and Duterte trading jokes - the first one which implied that Poe ships Roxas and Binay when she talked about how the two shared a holding room. She repeated the same thing when she talked about how she and Duterte shared the same holding room as well. In fact, when Poe said that she can share a room with anyone as long as they are sensible, Duterte went on to say "That's me!".

Also, here is a documentation of a Poe-Duterte moment during the pre-debate footage as tweeted by GMA News:

Translation:
Duterte: Grace, let’s sing together. 
Poe: Sure.
Duterte: What song? 
Poe: Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang? (Why did you make it just now?)

Also notable in the pre-debate footage is Duterte keeping count of how many times Roxas had excused himself to use the restroom (which was thrice according to Duterte). Honestly, I think Poe, Duterte and Roxas should become the emcees to Sen. Miriam Santiago's inauguration if she gets elected president - or if not that, the three deserve their own reality show.

The Debate Proper

The debate was supposed to start at 4:30 in the afternoon today but due to the delays caused by Vice President Binay, it started at past 5:00 in the afternoon already. The debate started with Poe, Roxas and Duterte burning Binay for the delays he caused and Luchi Cruz-Valdez repeatedly calling out Binay for bringing his notes to the debate when COMELEC has a policy that bans candidates from bringing notes to the debate.

Two of the most important issues that were discussed during the debates were on the Freedom of Information bill and Climate Change. 

The following are the stances of the four candidates on the Freedom of Information Bill:

  • Duterte: He only made mention of his running mate, Alan Peter Cayetano, signing a waiver that would publicize his bank documents
  • Poe: Part of her implementation of the FOI if elected President would be for the disclosure of the SALN to the public to extend to the Barangay Chairmen. She also said that someone from the administration blocked the FOI hence the reason why it was never passed into law.
  • Binay: Wants the law to be passed as soon as possible through an executive order if elected President. Grace Poe doubts this while Binay reassures her.
  • Roxas: He joked about how Grace Poe was lowkey referring to him when she talked about a person in the administration who blocked the FOI.
As for the issue of Climate Change, Mar Roxas is willing to give incentives to those who use natural energy sources while Grace Poe agrees with his plan but wants solar energy to be given priority and for the plans involving the incentives to be concrete. Rodrigo Duterte meanwhile says that it does not need to be discussed since it has already happened in the form of El Nino.

Three "Taas Kamay" (Hands Up) questions were asked to the four candidates and the results are as follows:
  • 1st "Taas Kamay" question: Should divorce be legalized? - none of the four candidates raised their hands
  • 2nd "Taas Kamay" question: Should death penalty be reintroduced? - Poe and Duterte raised their hands, stating their reasons that it should be imposed on drug and heinous crime offenders.
  • 3rd "Taas Kamay" question: Should ex-President Marcos be granted a heroes burial? - Binay and Duterte raised their hands. Duterte states that his reason for it is that because he wants to unite the country.

Reactions

First off are the reactions to various netizens on Vice President Binay delaying the start of the debate:



And there were also reactions to Duterte, Poe and Roxas ganging up on Binay when the debates started:


There were also reactions from netizens who wished that Sen. Miriam Santiago was present in the debate (she was absent since she had to test a Cancer drug - yup, while her four co-candidates are sucking at debating, she is there, busy trying to revolutionize Cancer treatment!)




Netizens were also cheering on for Luchi Curz-Valdez (the moderator) as she managed to keep herself calm despite being in the middle of an intense debate.


Lastly, there were netizens who cheered on for the sign-language interpreter for tonight's debate.


The Conclusion 

On a serious note, the candidates handled themselves unprofessionally - and there are those who speculate that this may be because Sen. Miriam Santiago wasn't present in the debate (and no one would try to act unprofessional in front of her). I think that could be true since in the Mindanao leg of the PiliPinas Debates, Sen. Miriam Santiago was present and the atmosphere happened to be more serious than tonight's.

On a lighter note, tonight's debate has become a source of memes - particularly ones of Vice President Binay being likened to a student who comes to a quiz unprepared and asks his professor if the class could do "open notes" for the quiz. 

The pre-debate footage being aired by TV5 after the debate itself made up for the loss that was the poor performance of the presidential candidates during their debate tonight. 

I just hope that things will go back to being more serious in the Luzon round and for the Vice Presidential debates.
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