Transitioning from Losing in Elections: New Jersey's Corzine & the Philippines' Erap

In today's New York Times, Jon S. Corzine's (New Jersey's 54th Governor) featured in this article in the business section (Corzine Starting Small in Bid for Redemption) on what makes him busy these days. Reading it, I got impressed that such a transition has taken place with his life, and I admire the guts he's taken to go about in Wall Street-type of trading after losing the most recent elections in New Jersey. He's gone back to where he started, and apparently, has done a good job moving on.

And I'm curious to know what Erap, the disgraced 13th President of the Philippines, will be doing after he finally concedes to the now-winning Noynoy Aquino in the national elections. Personally, I would have wanted Erap to win the most recent elections ---- if such a winning happened, it would have made an amazing, incredible, movie-like story (of which Erap's life, itself, is not far from being one, with him being an awarded actor in Philippine movies) for everyone to hear, and crow about. I mean, in terms of actual leadership and political experience, there's more credentials that you can read on Erap's resume than that of Noynoy's (but that's another story to dwell on). Will Erap have a more interesting story about his own moving on experience? I wonder what he'll do next, now that the idea of losing (and actually even garnering 2nd highest votes from Noynoy) settles in his mind. Will he retire finally from politics, and become a force to reckon with in developing, influencing leadership directions in the Philippines.

I may just be stretching issues here a bit (with Corzine running for a state-wide position, while Erap running on a national post). But similarities and contrasts can be easily identified in both cases, that may get our minds running. I'm just perplexed why the Philippines (and other countries for that matter) have issues on dealing with giving people second-chances. It would have turned into a sort-of-national-cleansing process if Erap gets elected again, and that would have shown something about the greatness (or stupidity, depending on how you'd like to look at it) of the typical Filipino character---there's got to be a lot of reading, giving meaning to what we have now, and behind all these developments lately.

This idea on giving second chances becomes more obvious and needed in countries that are known to be religious, or whose quality of religiosity borders on a national psychosis. When it comes to actually forgiving and forgetting about past misdeeds (or yes, "sins" as most would want to hear of this word, perhaps), there's a certain lack of actual desire to give individuals who have committed grave mistakes before the much appreciated second chance. Is it not better to give persons the second chance? Or is it just too risky? Most would tend to remember past transgressions conveniently, and make use of it in judging people's character---well, that's very human-like, as all of us are creatures of habit.