Has the opposition learned their lessons from their debacle in the 2022 election? No.
Is there hope for them in the future? Will they be able to put up candidates in the 2025 midterm election? No.
What will happen to the opposition from 2022 onwards? Not much.
One of Leni Robredo’s last acts as Vice-President was presiding over the oath-taking of Risa Hontiveros, the lone opposition Senatorial candidate who won. She’s now the highest-ranking member of the opposition in office and by default she’s their leader. But how can that be when Hontiveros is identified with Akbayan and not the Liberal Party? Leave it to their leadership to explain how their internal structure is. Think of how Leni Robredo ran as an “independent” without resigning from the Liberal Party.
Since their ignominious defeat, the opposition has been nitpicking at the Marcos’ and the Duterte’s. cRappler is the new ABS-CBN. The hiring of Inday Espina Varona appears to be the signal for the alliance between the pro-US and leftist-militant groups. Strange bedfellows but the leftist-militants are without an ideology. They have become political prostitutes who peddle what’s left of their influence to the highest bidder.
Randy David, in his Inquirer column today, dissects Marcos’ inaugural speech.
“By your vote, you rejected the politics of division. I offended none of my rivals in this campaign.” This flies in the face of what actually happened on the ground, where armies of media strategists and trolls, through lies and disinformation, freely used social media to wage the most divisive presidential campaign in the nation’s political history. Mr. Marcos Jr. could pretend to stay above the fray because his own partisans of hate were busy doing the attacking for him.
It’s as if the opposition didn’t employ their own trolls. Very hypocritical on their part. But that’s how they usually are which is why they don’t have much credibility with the public. What of cRappler which functions more as the opposition mouthpiece and even goes to the extent of getting Hillary Clinton to tweet her support of their cause?
“I am here not to talk about the past. I am here to tell you about our future.” But he says this only after praising the legacy of “a man who saw what little had been achieved since independence in a land filled with people with the greatest potential for achievement, and yet they were poor. But he got it done … So will it be with his son.” What, exactly, did Marcos Sr., his father, get done? And at what cost? Again, Mr. Marcos Jr. avoids a full accounting of that regime’s record. The important thing to remember is that, referencing the title of Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, “The sun [son] also rises like it did today.”
What exactly did the opposition get done when they were in power? If they made good on their promised reform and the standard of life changed for the average Filipino, would the Marcos’ have been able to stage a comeback? Part of the reason why they’re back in power is because not much change took place in thirty years.
The US and Australia, the two leading members of the QUAD alliance, sent a high-level delegation to Marcos’ inaugural. This is an indication that they’re looking forward to working with Marcos who is unlike his predecessor.
Our strongest leverage is our strategic location which is why China, the US and Australia are all extending their hand of help and cooperation to the new President.
In politically mature democracies, the opposition sits down and begins working with the administration after an election. This is not the case with the Philippine opposition. Leni Robredo just launched her Angat-Buhay NGO, which is her way of staying in the public eye since she lost her bid for the Presidency. Don’t expect Robredo and her ilk to start cooperating with the Marcos administration anytime soon.
Look to the opposition to be noisy and irritating because that’s all their capable of. Robredo will probably try to run for the Senate in 2025. She will more than likely follow in the footsteps of Mar Roxas in terms of her political career. Dead.
But that doesn’t stop her from trying. The opposition demands statemanship but they don’t practice it. Robredo hasn’t conceded to Marcos and has not called for unity among Filipinos and work with the present administration for the good of all.
In the meantime, the Marcos administration has serious problems to attend to. The opposition’s “public intellectuals” are all busy blaming these on everyone except themselves.
If I were in Marcos’ shoes, the time is ripe to go for an “authoritarian democracy,” Singapore-style. It’s about time that political structural reforms are put in place. A federal parliamentary government as Duterte advocated. It’s time to do away with the Senate. A unicameral legislature where the Cabinet Ministers are also members of parliament would bode well for the Philippines in the long-term.
We don’t need an opposition for a better Philippines. We need to bury the opposition for a better Philippines.
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