The latest Pulse Asia survey for the last quarter of 2021 had an interesting question; if your first choice for President wouldn’t be able to continue with his or her candidacy, who would your second choice be?
The results were no surprise. Isko Moreno, Ping Lacson, Leni Robredo, in this order. So much for the Vice-President wanting Sen. Lacson to “give way” to her candidacy as part o her effort to “unify” the opposition. Mind you, this was after Lacson and Senate President Tito Sotto made public their Presidential and Vice-Presidential bids respectively. We all know what happened there. It was one snafu again, which was repeated twice because there were two meetings between Lacson and Robredo.
Here’s an idea for Leni Robredo and her supporters, if they really want to prevent a Marcos return to Malacanan, why not withdraw in favor of the candidate who has the strongest chance of challenging Bongbong Marcos? Doy Laurel stepped aside in favor of Cory in 1986. Why not do the same now?
It’s about this the Pinklawans got their head out of their asses and become political pragmatists. Robredo’s maxed out her support base judging from her survey numbers. Her supporters are doing cartwheels spinning the numbers in her favor to no avail, since it appears that it’s only them who are convinced of an upward trajectory in her candidacy. But this was flattened by the unexpected release of the Octa Group survey which showed Robredo with lower voter preference than the Pulse Asia survey.
Recall how Sen. Lacson’s proposal to Robredo when they first met was for the candidate trailing in the surveys come December to give way to the candidate who was leading or who had better chances of challenging the erstwhile survey leader. Lacson revealed that the Vice-President didn’t even bother to give him the courtesy of thinking over the proposal. She rejected it outright and insisted on her own formula of Lacson giving way to her with Senate President Tito Sotto as her running mate.
At this point, the candidacies of Robredo, Moreno and Pacquiao are going nowhere. Robredo has been in one PR fiasco over another because of her campaign team’s penchant for gimmickry over a governance platform.
Moreno’s hasn’t gained traction because his campaign manager hasn’t been able to assemble a political coalition to back him up. After Edgar Erice and the group of Caloocan City councilors he brought along with him, there has been no other major defection to Moreno’s Aksyon Demokratiko party. Moreno also doesn’t have a governance platform which Banayo promised will be made public right after he surfaced as the campaign manager. Even the recruitment of Vince Dizon as deputy campaign manager left Banayo with egg on his face. Dizon is still with the administration as vaccination czar.
Pacquiao is only registering double-digits because he’s giving away money. If not for this, he would be languishing in the cellar. Koko Pimentel has virtually abandoned him to focus on his wife’s campaign for their party-list group, PDP Cares. The PDP-Laban imbroglio has become moot what with the administration not being able to field a complete ticket for the top two posts to a twelve-man Senatorial slate. It remains to be seen if the President will endorse a candidate as his successor. Pac-Man is left with Koko’s trusted lieutenant, Ronwald Munsayac, by his side with his communications headed any Munsayac’s associate, Bernard Peralta.
Why is the opposition unable to take advantage of this opportunity?
The simple answer is the opposition is tone-deaf because they are ensconced either high up in their ivory towers or deep down in their silos. This is evident with the way the campaign is being run and the attitude of Robredo’s diehard supporters. Ideologically pure should give way to political pragmatism but this is a concept which is supposedly hard to accept for the Pinklawans except for one obvious contraditction; look at Robredo’s Senatorial slate which she handpicked. It’s not exactly anywhere near the Otso-Diretso of 2019. It’s more politically pragmatic. She just copied the other party’s which adopted the more popular candidates who used to be Yellows when it was still politically-correct.
The hard question is, can Leni Robredo actually win the Presidency come May 2022?
The simple answers is NO. The only way she wins is if she has the Comelec on her side which is how she managed her “victory” over Marcos in 2016. This still doesn’t stop fanatics like Harvey Keh who believe that Robredo and Pangilinan can still emerge on top. Not even praying for a miracle will work. The bottomline is both are politically-damaged goods.
You then have ideological purists like Katrina Stuart Santiago, who continues to call out the Robredo campaign for its ideological impurity. Stuart Santiago has been under fire that Robredo should be making alliances with Grace Poe and Isko Moreno, in a bid to increase her chances of winning the Presidency. Again, this is not politically pragmatic given Poe has committed to support Lacson-Sotto and Moreno is backed by the same oligarchs who are also financing Robredo’s campaign.
Alex Magno of the Philippine Star had the following about Robredo’s floundering candidacy;
In a separate essay, I will go through the strategic blunders committed so far by the Robredo campaign. This will explain why this early her campaign has appeared to have peaked and begun to recede. There are many indications Leni’s campaign will resemble Grace Poe’s 2016 quest: a bright flash in the pan.
For this moment, let us examine a unique feature in the OCTA survey.
OCTA attempts to measure voter commitment to their preferred candidate. In face-to-face interviews, respondents were asked whether they would likely change their mind or not. Most voters indicated a high degree of commitment to their preferred candidate.
Among those who preferred Marcos, 73 percent said they will likely not change/definitely not change their vote. Only 50 percent of Robredo voters were as committed.
Among those who preferred Sara Duterte as vice-president, 74 percent said they will likely not change/definitely not change their vote. Only 50 percent of Sotto voters were as committed to their first choice.
Among those who had indicated a first choice for president, OCTA attempted to measure second-choice options in case the original preference becomes unavailable.
Domagoso leads the second-choice column with 21 percent, Pacquiao with 12 percent, Marcos with 14 percent (considering he already holds 54 percent first-choice preference) and Lacson with 13 percent. Robredo ranks only fifth as second choice option with 12 percent.
This dimension is significant, considering (the distant possibility) one or two candidates may either withdraw from the race or be disqualified. Should a further simplification of the race happen, Robredo will still not land on top.
Expectedly, Leni sympathizers reacted to the OCTA survey with much denial. One TV host pressed OCTA’s Guido David about why the firm is doing opinion polling when it had established its reputation with accurate forecasts about the progress of the pandemic. It took a while to sink in her mind that market research and opinion surveys are really OCTA’s main line of business. Dealing with pandemic statistics was a patriotic digression.
The sword of Damocles hanging over BBM’s head is the disqualification cases he faces at the Comelec. The solomonic decision should be to let the voters decide his case. But you and I both know the Comelec is an “independent” body. It’s so independent that its former Chair, Andy Bautista, extended the deadline for the filing of the SOCE for the Liberal Party in 2016 even if it wasn’t allowed by the Omnibus Election Code. Failure to meet the deadline would have resulted in the perpetual disqualification from office of ALL Liberal Party candidates in that election cycle.
But all things being equal, the turning point in the campaign is the debate series. We have seen how Duterte gave Roxas, Binay and Poe a hard time in 2016. This was also the period when he solidified his lead over his rivals. It is not likely that Robredo, Moreno and Pacquiao will do well in the debates based on their performance thus far. The debates will be between Sen. Ping Lacson and Bongbong Marcos. They are the only candidates who have committed to an issues-based campaign devoid of black propaganda and mudslinging and have kept their word. The Comelec should not rob voters of this opportunity to hear two candidates present their governance platforms to the people.
Marcos is the sentimental favorite but Lacson is the most prepared in terms of track record and experience, for the Presidency. The simple digitalization or digitization framework he proposes would minimize red tape and corruption and improve the delivery of government services to the people at both the national and local levels. More, importantly, this will allow not only the government bureaucracy but also the public to adjust to the new normal of the pandemic is endemic where there would continuity in business and government even when there is a need for a lockdown due to a serious outbreak from a new Covid variant.
Of course, it will not happen that Robredo will withdraw from the race. Not even if the membership of the Anybody But Leni Facebook group balloons to a million. But her zealous supporters should wake up and be pragmatic about her chances. If they are bent on stopping Marcos from a return to Malacanan, they should get behind a candidate who is more than prepared and can do good for the country and its citizens.
It can be said that only Lacson and Marcos are the only candidates who respect the Filipino electorate because they are prepared to present their programs and plans of action for their consideration in exchange for their votes. Robredo, Moreno and Pacquiao continue to think of voters as dumb enough to fall for their gimmickry, dance numbers and money.
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