No quick fix

For sure, there are people who agree with Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano that the nation, with its seriously damaged institutions, needs a reset for a clean slate.

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

A snap election, however, is not the answer. Not only because there’s no law for this, and we're no longer under a dictatorship, which allowed Ferdinand Marcos to pit himself against Corazon Aquino in the 1986 snap election.

The more fundamental reason is that our electoral system itself is a major part of the corruption sinkhole into which our nation has fallen.

It starts with the fielding of candidates. Cayetano proposes the resignation of President Marcos, Vice President Sara Duterte and all members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In the unlikely event that they all do so— presumably with Cayetano and his sister Pia themselves leading the move, as suggested by their naughty brother - there must be a stringent requirement that no one related to the resigned officials, up to the fourth degree of blood or marriage ties, can run for the vacated positions.

Otherwise we will simply have the same dog with a different collar, a cosmetic change, with the same surnames and the same MOs for robbing the nation blind.

A snap election will merely provide yet another opportunity for opaque fundraising, with billions again funneled into one of the biggest and most efficient laundromats for dirty money in our looted country: campaign finance.

It will provide yet another opportunity for venal politicians to use taxpayers’ money for buying votes, for claiming credit for state-funded dole-outs or ayuda used for personal promotion.