Spencer Haywood was a basketball star in the U.S. in the mid 1960s and, though a mere sophomore in college, he led the U.S. to an Olympics basketball championship in the 1968 Olympiad.
After a brief glorious career at the defunct American Basketball Association, he was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics in 1970 and went on to star for that team. Though he did not deliver an NBA championship, he made the Sonics a perennial contender. Eventually, the relationship between Haywood and the Sonics soured and he was dispatched to the New York Knicks. The Sonics replaced Haywood with a heralded legitimate star of the Denver Nuggets, Marvin "The Human Eraser" Webster.
The New York Knicks were in unfamiliar doldrums after their championship runs in the late 60s and early 70s, and Haywood was the hired gun to put the team back on track to another championship season.
The New York press was unimpressed and asked him (my paraphrase), "You are being hailed as the savior of this franchise, do you think it's the position you want to be in?"
Haywood replied, "If they want me to be the savior, then I will be their savior."
Haywood flopped as a New York Knick, just like Bob McAdoo before him, who had earlier been hailed as the Knicks' savior. Marvin Webster turned out to be the Sonics' savior and put the team in the NBA championship in 1978. The Sonics team lost in the 7th and final game against the Washington Bullets.
One of the lessons we can perhaps learn from this is that quite often the "savior" that we all seem to be looking for turns out to be a dud, while the one we never ever thought could be any help turns out to be the savior who comes in from the cold.
I have been tossing in my head this "savior" notion over the past few days because of an emerging phenomenon in the Philippine political scene that seems to put the country inexorably in the path of a Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, III presidency.
The country seems to have coalesced behind the son of the late Benigno and Cory Aquino tandem that ended the brutal and corrupt dictatorship of the Marcoses' self-proclaimed royalty.
The "savior" that the country was looking for until lately appeared to be Senate President Manny Villar. His rags-to-riches story resonated with the people, and with his enormous riches fueling his television campaign, Manny was the odds-on favorite to nail the presidential election in May, 2010.
Then Cory died and the country's focus was, as if by magic, redirected to a search for an uncorrupt and incorruptible man in the mold of the late Cory Aquino. The new "savior" is now the late Aquino's son, Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aguino, III. This savior seems to have come in from the cold.
Nobody expected anything from Noynoy. A confirmed bachelor more interested in beauty queens than the country's welfare and much less charismatic than his sister Kris Aquino who many were projecting as presidential material in the not-too-distant future, Noynoy was a political afterthought.
Then the late revered Cory dies and BAM! the country turns to the un-charismatic Noynoy.
Why do people consider him their next "savior"? First, he is an Aquino, a thoroughbred issue from the latest heroic Filipino historical figures in a long list of Filipino tragic historical figures. Second, because there is no record or accusation of Noynoy Aquino being a corrupt politician, the voters assume that once in power Noynoy will be an uncorrupt and incorruptible President.
While there is always a chance that Noynoy will turn out to be the exact opposite of his current image once in power, it's a safe bet that he will not tarnish the memory of both his parents by governing as a mere trapo (traditional politician).
If I were a betting man, I would bet that "corrupt" would not be an adjective that we all will be using to describe Noynoy as a President. What he actually accomplishes as a President, by way of infrastructure projects, attraction of foreign investors, helping millions of Filipinos escape the clutches of poverty - all remain question marks for this relatively old bachelor.
The country is poised to elect a man President on the basis of one issue: he is not corrupt. What that signals is that the Filipinos are ready to slay the dragon that guards the castle and has imprisoned the fair Princess Fiona. They are seeking to slay the single, most fearsome creature that is preventing Filipinos from dreaming that any positive changes can take place in the Philippines: corruption in the highest levels of government.
To this writer, it is reminiscent of the Obama phenomenon. Americans wanted Change, and they were betting that Change was what they would get from Obama.
Filipinos want change to an uncorrupt Presidency and by extension an uncorrupt government, and they feel that this change is what they will get from Noynoy.
I would rank corruption in government as the most important problem confronting Filipinos. Many have correctly pointed out that a lot of other countries, including the U.S., are plagued with official corruption also, but corruption does not seem to be a barrier to economic development and continued prosperity.
Yet, while other countries have never rid themselves of corruption, it was only after corruption was minimized and controlled that such countries actually took off economically.
We all know about North Korea. The leaders and well-connected live lavish lifestyles, while peasants have either died from famines or are in danger of being the next ones to die. North Korea is a classic case of the egregiously unbalanced distribution of scarce resources and wealth through official government corruption, resulting in periodic famines.
Afghanistan is feeding in the trough of U.S. largess, but it seems that only those well-connected have a place in the pigs' dining tables, while the rest of the country must resort to growing poppies and distributing the derived heroin to survive.
In addition to the uneven distribution of wealth in the Philippines, any 6th grader in the Philippines knows that the reason a lot of people make it big there and a whole lot more people live their lives in quiet desperation is not because of a meritocratic distribution of wealth and opportunity, but because in Darwinian Philippines, the survivors are often the corrupt, the corruptors, smugglers, jueteng entrepreneurs and other law-breakers.
Too harsh? Visit the Philippines and talk to the urban middle class, the taxi drivers, the legions of men and women who earn less than $3 a day and have trouble feeding and housing their families.
Filipinos are telling us loud and clear that they do not want a continuation of the status quo. They want a new leader, one who will break down the culture of corruption, one who will end the tradition of Presidents using the Philippine treasury as their personal bank account.
Filipinos want a clean government, a level playing field. They want to wake up one day and find that the deserving and the entrepreneurial, not the well-connected, have the corner on the scarce wealth and resources. They dream of a rags-to-riches storybook ending, like the two Manny (Pacquiao and Villar) stories.
But they are not turning to either man, they are turning to Noynoy.
Therein lies the danger. If Noynoy wins the Presidency in May, 2010, which he seems poised to do at this stage of the campaign, the expectations will be very high on three fronts:
1. He is expected to end the corruption at the highest levels which the Arroyos are perceived to be engaged in and for which similar corruption Arroyo's predecessor had been convicted of plunder.
2. His style of governance is expected to inspire lower-level government officials to focus on good governance and not on self-aggrandizement.
3. He is expected to have a love affair with the people the way his mother, Cory, had such a love affair and to the extent that his father had been inspired to surrender his life to benefit his countrymen.
People don't seem to care that Noynoy is not known as an economic development type. The recent SWS (Social Weather Service) survey seems to correlate support for Noynoy with the anti-corruption issue, while support for Manny Villar, who comes in a distant second, appears to correlate with the preference for someone who emerged from poverty to become one of the richest men in the Philippines.
The perceived ability to lift the country economically is second only to honesty as a trait people are looking for in the current presidential race, based on the same survey.
The danger in all this is that if Noynoy fails to deliver, that is, if no measurable progress is made in the country's fight against corruption and he is perceived as not one who champions the causes of the people, it may be the end of the line for the Filipino nation as we know it.
Filipinos have tried perceived intellectuals, actors, economists, revolutionaries (Cory Aquino and Marcos), technocrats, military heroes, lawyers. Nothing has worked.
The only solutions that Filipinos have not tried are the rule of a military junta and a Mao Zedong-style revolution, both extreme and scary scenarios.
Tony Abaya seems to think that a short-lived military junta that will quickly clean up society and turn over the reins to a civilian government staffed by patriots is the only solution left. Some have championed a Chinese "cultural revolution," complete with the tarring, parading and quickie trials of reputed corrupt government officials and bureaucrats.
I don't think Filipinos are that desperate. With the election of Noynoy Aquino, coupled with a revolution in the ballot box that I have been advocating, we have a unique opportunity to install a President that a huge segment of the population loves dearly and has great hopes for. We can also hand him a clean slate of government officials who will owe their election to a Filipino people dreaming of and clamoring for a new kind of leadership that focuses on good governance and the fight against poverty.
What are the chances that this scenario will unfold past May, 2010? The election of Noynoy is eminently doable because all that has to happen is for the people who are leaning towards Noynoy go to the polls.
The second part, the revolution in the ballot box, is problematical right now because it will require that Filipinos realize that Noynoy must be given a great supporting cast to succeed. Assuming Noynoy tries to govern as a clean and effective politician, his efforts will likely be thwarted if most of the lower-level officials, especially senators and congressmen, govern like the pigs-in-the-trough party never ended.
We must drain the swamp. Then we will fill it up with new water and put in only the fish that we want to live and propagate in that swamp.
Short of a true revolution, the only way this can be done is by voting down most politicians who are running for re-election in May, 2010. Noynoy is the key. He must offer a new slate of politicians - from town mayors all the way up to senators, Vice-President and President. The slate must consist of his personal selections, not those handed him by his political party, the Liberal Party. His choices will give the people an indication of whether he is serious about reforming the country, that he is the change agent Filipinos are looking for.
He must have a long coat-tail. As he ascends into power, he must take with him his hand-picked running mates - from senators and congressmen, all the way down to local offices that are holding elections in 2010. And in elections beyond 2010, he must also offer his slate of candidates.
The country is eager to turn the country over to Noynoy and his team of similar-minded and dedicated political allies.
Vote for change, vote for new leadership. We do not have to be married to the trapos who run the government now. We can replace most of them, especially the ones who are thumbing their noses at us as we beg them to put country first and their relatives, cronies and hangers-on second.
If we do this - if we trade the bums for new blood and new leadership, the country can be saved and put on the right path to economic, cultural and ethical development. The country must insist on a "savior," not just a new President.
