IT looks like the political reforms we are all wishing for will again take a back seat as the remaining days of the political campaign come to a close. As a national paper reported three days ago, the writing is on the wall, indicating that all the three senatorial candidates of “Ang Kapatiran” face imminent defeat.

        Though established in 2004 by a group of lay Catholics, Ang Kapatiran is the newest political party to join the elections whose intention is the initiate a new perspective in Philippine politics – one that would be centered on faith and morals. With their noble crusade, Ang Kapatiran believers hope that with the support of the people, the political system will heal itself, that politicians will turn into statesmen, and leaders will become genuine servants.

        Ang Kapatiran candidates Martin Bautista, Adrian Sison and Jesus Zosimo Paredes admitted that based on surveys where they fared even lower than certified poll losers Victor Wood and Chavit Singon, they don’t stand a chance in the May 14 polls. “We’re close to Election Day but the voters still don’t know us,” Bautista had told a news reporter of a top daily.

        Ironically, the people with good intentions and have the competence and sincerity to help realize them are usually the losers in Philippine elections.

        But while they accept defeat at this early stage, Bautista and his partymates who have vowed to fight traditional Philippine politics maintained that electoral defeat should not be construed as surrender because the struggle was never focused solely on winning in the polls. “This is a long and protracted struggle to put the country back on track,” Bautista assured the electorate even while majority of the Filipinos were unmindful of what he was proselytizing.

        Bautista is a successful physician in the US who moved back to the Philippines to serve his fellow Filipinos at home. Among other things, his political party wants to do away with the following: celebrity politics, the politics of personality, pork barrel, deception, hypocrisy, dishonesty, patronage, pay-off, immoral compromises, political family dynasties, and the politics of guns, goons and gold. They also want to make politics an effective means for the integral development or total well-being of all rather than a tool for the advancement of a privileged few.

        These three Don Quixotes are deemed to be crazy from the time they filed their certificates of candidacy, but are they?

        “We’ve succeeded in the sense that we’ve created an awareness that there are still people who have not lost hope in our nation,” Bautista said explaining that they have met these people while on the campaign trail, such us the calloused hand working in the public market, a couple raising a decent family, and an honest employee doing honest and dedicated work.

        The three good men plunged into politics armed only with their idealism – no money, media and machinery even while many of the candidates, while already having the three M’s still crave for the 3Gs-- guns, goons and gold. “While on the campaign trail, I came to realize that corruption cuts across the whole spectrum of Philippine society,” Bautista said. “But I’m not backing out. On the contrary, our idealism has become stronger.”

        Apparently, their triumph will come only as soon as good citizens of this country stand to be counted. As one Jesuit priest pointed out: “Good citizens choose good bets”. He added to explain that the election which is everyone’s concern demands integrity not only from the candidates but also from the voters.