ALAN ROBLES

Four months from now, millions of Filipinos will be taking a nationwide IQ test. It looks like they are going to fail. The test is the presidential election, scheduled for May 10. The problem it poses each voter is this: how will you choose your president and vice-president? Already, it is possible to get an idea of what the answer will be simply by looking at the list of candidates. The leading contenders are an action movie star and two television news presenters, none of whom has any provable political skills or perceivable intellectual depth.

If the opinion polls are any judge, all the public seems to care about is a candidate's popularity, no matter how shallow that person might be. Heavily favoured Fernando Poe Jr., the action film star, announced his candidacy without declaring what he stands for or what he proposes to do if elected. He has still said nothing, and his handlers have carefully kept him away from the media.

His running mate, news presenter and senator Loren Legarda, had desperately shopped around for a party - any party - that would take her. Now, as Poe's partner, she has as her confederates a motley group of candidates who include unrepentant cronies of the deceased dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the son of disgraced former president Joseph Estrada. Judging from her wide grin, Senator Legarda is not in the least bothered about being in bed politically with such dubious characters.

Another television presenter, Senator Noli de Castro, has wound up as the vice-presidential candidate paired with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Senator de Castro, who also shopped around for a party, has not given any clue what he will do if he gets the job.

Yet for all their crass opportunism, entertainment and television personalities consistently top the surveys. Blame it on Filipinos' toxic love affair with popularity. In 1998, in the face of reports that he was an incompetent drunkard, gambler and womaniser, former movie star Estrada was overwhelmingly voted into the presidency. Three years later he is on trial for graft and plunder.

One reason why entertainers are so popular is that they are the faces Filipinos get exposed to most often. In a country where more than 90 per cent of households have televisions, a daily presence on the screen can pay tremendous political dividends. Another reason is that traditional politicians, or "trapos", are usually little better. What the voters have yet to realise is that neither trapos nor entertainers have any goals beyond acquiring the perks and powers of office. No candidate has presented any idea of how to address the country's basic problem: that it is a corrupt nation run largely by and for a small oligarchy. It is a problem that needs social and cultural changes not in the interests of the elite, and beyond the attention span of telegenic candidates. If Filipinos fail their national IQ test this May, it will be because the whole thing has been rigged from the start.

And I say: AYE!