Gibo moves on
October 20, 2011 - Manila Standard Today
The man many still believe was the best candidate for President in last year’s elections has announced that his heart is no longer in the game. And while this did not come as a shock to those convinced that he was the one who truly embodied the virtues of vision, decency, intelligence and performance, it was still a cause for sadness among the “green” faithful, who had really wanted him to stage a comeback.
Privately, to various friends and supporters, former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro had already said he’s done with politics. And so it came as no surprise when he told media the same thing, that he would no longer seek public office.
“I have no plans to run [anymore],” Teodoro said to ABS-CBN on the sidelines of a lecture at Ateneo University. “I find no fulfillment in it. I have to think of my own family now. I was defense secretary and that’s it for me.”
The former Tarlac congressman, who inspired millions of people who were able to look beyond the politics of guilt by association, said he is now fully immersed in the job of running his own private investment house. Despite the current inclement investment climate, few doubt that Gibo will succeed in this private endeavor, as he has in nearly every field where he has brought his considerable talents to bear.
It is to Teodoro’s credit that the only real knock against him was that he served under the Arroyo administration. No one doubted his own integrity or brilliance, his work ethic or even that he was way better than any of the other candidates in the 2010 elections in almost every respect.
And it is the dubious achievement of the anti-Arroyo forces that they were so successful in their efforts to malign the previous administration that Teodoro was relegated to his eventual lowly place in that election. And that the candidate who promised nothing except to be the polar opposite of Gloria Arroyo was elected by a comfortable margin over his closest pursuer.
If it’s true that we get the government that we deserve, then perhaps it was really a mistake for someone as admirable as Teodoro to seek the highest office in the land. We have not, as a nation, sought the best to lead us in a long time; worse, we appear doomed to a fate of electing leaders on the basis of emotion and pedigree, with no regard for how much damage these unworthy people will cause us after the stage-managed giddiness and the manufactured euphoria pass.
Teodoro himself has always been uncomfortable about being hailed as the Moses who will lead this country to the Promised Land of progress, peace, good government and civility. One always sensed in Gibo a deep distaste for the politics of personality that has long pervaded the process of electing this country’s leaders, especially in the way that he has downplayed his origins in a political clan that has been in power for generations.
“I think, therefore I am for Gibo” was the battle-cry of his supporters. Unfortunately, not enough people who went to the polls employed this basic Cartesian principle to the act of voting – and the results are plain to all but the most rabid sycophants of the one in whom they eventually reposed their trust.
We weren’t ready for Gibo Teodoro, haven’t been for anyone possessing his qualities – the same ones we sorely require in these parlous times. But perhaps the incompetence, cluelessness, vengefulness, sloth and apathy of the present dispensation will move us closer in the direction of demanding from our leaders the same virtues that we seek in heads of corporations or even just heads of our families.
We have to hope that this is true. If not, then we must be truly doomed to suffer bad governance – and to pining for the best presidents we never had.
source:
Manila Standard Today-Gibo Moves On - Oct 20 2011
GIBO Moves On
Originally Posted by æRLO
Reply With Quote
