#letlenilead has been around since the opposition thought it would click with the public as part of their efforts to turn public opinion against Rodrigo Duterte. What has been going on for a good six years now has proved to be an exercise in futility for the opposition. Duterte will step down from the Presidency as the most popular, with the highest trust and approval ratings post-Marcos. This is fact and there is no doubt about it.
In the meantime, we find the #busypresidente of the opposition struggling in her Presidential candidacy. With a survey ranking in second place and voter preference ranging between 14% – 20%, Robredo is trailing Bongbong Marcos by double-digits. The opposition appears shell-shocked as to why this is the case considering the Marcos’ have been vilified since 1986; magnanakaw, mamamatay-tao, diktador have been used to describe the late Apo Lakay and his family.
As usual, the opposition’s collective talking heads are spinning because they have been under the impression that Robredo would be all prepped for her date with destiny. At least that’s what they think. The official campaign period hasn’t begun yet but it looks like Robredo is dead in the water.
What happened?
I suppose the sheer logical acrobatics required to spin down the survey results is proportional to the desperation of some campaign groups.
In the days following the release of the Pulse Asia and OCTA December surveys, the chatter in social media (especially from Leni partisans) has been directed at shooting down the surveys. Both the Pulse Asia and OCTA surveys gave Bongbong Marcos more than a simple majority of the preference vote. Furthermore, the OCTA poll shows that the Marcos voters particularly are unlikely to change their vote as we move towards elections.
Leni supporters appear keener to shoot the messengers. They dismiss the surveys as the work of paid hacks intending to condition the minds of voters. Some denounce commentators for discussing the survey results. Others want surveys banned.
Surveys reflect the disposition of our voters at any stage in the unfolding electoral process. A disdain for the surveys reflects a disdain for what our voters are saying.
Much has been said about the “echo chamber” afflicting the Leni campaign. Convinced of their moral superiority, Leni campaigners are reluctant to listen to the man on the street and quick to ostracize those who represent a different view. Leni partisans called for a boycott of Tunying’s Café and the Gonzaga sisters. Fortunately, their boycott efforts are as ineffectual as their main campaign effort.
One of my friends, who volunteers for the Leni “lugaw” stunts, flew into a rage when I commented that the stuff I sampled in one of their stalls was watery. She accused me of not caring about our people’s nutrition. But the reverse was exactly my point: while attempting to win the favor of our voters, they treat the masses with contempt. Watery “lugaw” is not the way to liberate our people from malnutrition.
You have read our past pieces on the Vice-President. All form and no substance plus public perception that she is insincere is what make Robredo unpalatable to the public. There is also the vilification of the Marcos’ which has backfired big-time on the opposition. The people see Marcos with a different lens. His political ads speak of the future and none of the past. Contrast this with Robredo’s earlier statements that she will run just to prevent Marcos from becoming President which is negative and doesn’t address the problems the Filipino faces in the time of the pandemic. All of these have become the perfect storm for Robredo who is also deaf to public sentiment for the most part. She doesn’t even go out of her way to find out what the sentiment of the average Filipino is and can’t be objective enough to realize the weaknesses and mistakes of the opposition.
A good leader would’ve taken stock of all of these and crafted as strategy moving forward. This is another weakness of Robredo. No foresight and vision for the future. It will not happen that her mere image could give hope to the average Filipino. Most importantly, she should’ve been aware of how the tide has shifted against the opposition in 2016 and 2019. Her lack of initiative is why the public perceives her as a sock puppet. They also have the impression that she is out of touch with reality.
Leni Robredo’s campaign loves calling itself a “movement.” But they use the term in a very different sense, mainly as a euphemism of organizational and messaging chaos.
True, the campaign relies on the energy (and resources) of “volunteers.” By definition, these “volunteers” must be relatively well off. They do not have to hold down full-time jobs and must have enough money to spare so they can host “lugaw” stalls benefitting street urchins (including me).
But there is also a subtext here. It reinforces the patron-client relationship that cannot be concealed by the altruism of benefactors. It is precisely the superior-inferior relationship this conveys that the undercurrent of popular sentiment chaffs at.
This is the reason why there was such a strong grassroots reaction to Leni making an appearance in calamity-devastated communities with Kris Aquino in tow. This is a variant of what we call “poverty porn.” We might call it “calamity porn:” exploiting the misery of the victims for political gain, bringing only token relief in exchange. It borders on the abusive.
Leni Robredo tried to rationalize the yawning gap between her preference ratings and Bongbong Marcos’ by saying her rival started campaigning early. That is simply not true.
Until Sara Duterte abandoned her presidential campaign, Marcos seemed pretty content running for vice president again even in tandem with his much younger political partner. In contrast, the network of anti-Duterte partisans has been trying to bring down administration support for years. Leni’s presidential bid is simply the culmination of the long anti-Duterte effort.
Her mistake is to cast her candidacy in both the anti-Duterte and anti-Marcos frameworks. That trapped her campaign into looking at the past rather than offering a positive vision of the future. It made hers a campaign of hate and negativism instead of hope and unity.
In effect the Robredo campaign is a virtual showcase of the opposition’s hypocrisy and resulting insincerity laid bare for all the public to see. There is Kris Aquino collecting on utang na loob just as she gives out bags of Puregold groceries to recipients in Negros Occidental with Robredo watching approvingly. The image is disconcerting because it is like the Bombay money-lender who come by day-after-day, seven days a week to collect on the usurious rate of interest for the money lent. This is Leni and Kris telling the people, boto ang kapalit ng isang bag ng grocery na tatanggapin niyo. If this is not disrespectful and demeaning then I don’t know what is.
There is also the crooked moral compass that the opposition is so proud of. They are the “good” to the Marcos-Duterte “evil.” The problem is the public doesn’t believe them anymore. Duterte will step down as President with the gratitude of the majority of the Filipino people for the best efforts he exerted to deliver on the promises he made as a candidate.
The opposition will surely lose come May 2022. It is not a question of if or when anymore. It is a certainty. But their dysfunction is there for all to see. It is what I like to call polico-psychological dysfunction because they exist in their own ecosystem with their concocted realities. This is how out of touch with reality they are.
And this is why they will surely lose.
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