How to choose the next president, according to Miriam

MANILA, Philippines – Masculinity, Machiavellianism, and narcissism.  

These are among the traits that the next president of the country must not possess, according to Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago. 

The senator listed down the qualities she believes the next president of the Philippines should not have at a forum at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila on Thursday, November 27.

What should the next president not be? Santiago provides a checklist:

• Someone who is Machiavellian, or with a mindset characterized by manipulation and the need for power
• Someone who is a narcissist, or one with an inflated sense of self-importance and grandiosity
• Someone with subclinical psychopathy, which results from an aggregate of maladaptive trait deficits linked to anti-social deviance
• Someone with weak moral identity and primitive moral thinking as exhibited by the candidate who values personal loyalty over formal rules and does not distinguish between organizational and personal goals
  

She said the character traits of candidates prone to plunder are the following:

• Highly neurotic
• Future orientation
• Power distance
• Masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Social dominance orientation
• Moral disengagement

For Santiago, choosing the next president is simple – he or she must not be a plunderer.  

How does one spot a plunderer? Santiago provides several “spins” that a politician who is likely to be a plunderer could utter, among them, “This is a legitimate government process of long-standing.”

The likely plunderer would also say, “The consequences are minimal and my practice will speed up and directly deliver services to my constituents” and “I am not abusing the people’s money but I am using what is due to me and intended to be distributed among my constituents.”

Never mind experience or educational background, Santiago said studies show that the most critical aspect of a country is the “moral tone and examples set by leadership.”

“The best way to identify the best president is to develop a sense of moral identity – meaning the degree to which you think it is important to your sense of self to be caring, compassionate, fair, generous, etc, shaped by your response to feelings of power,” Santiago said.

The senator did not mention any names in her speech. 

In another speech in March, Santiago said she believes the Philippines should elect a female president in 2016. The senator is currently weighing whether she should run for president in 2016.  – Angela Casauay/Rappler.com