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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| The Trillanes Tsunami
By Antonio C. Abaya Written on May 16, 2007 For the Standard Today, May 17 issue There is a lot of back-patting and self-congratulations, especially from the Comelec, the National Police and President Arroyo that the recently concluded mid-term elections were the most peaceful elections ever held in this country. Most peaceful elections! How can elections in which 117 people were killed in election-related violence possibly be called �most peaceful�? This is worse than Iraq . Iraq has had two or three elections since the American invasion began in March 2003, but I do not recall that there were even half that many killed in incidents involving violence between competing political factions. (The daily car-bombings, suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices, etc are directly related to the insurgency against American occupation or the sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shias, not to the competition for seats in the Iraqi parliament.) No wonder one of the 219 foreigners who were invited here to observe the elections commented that �this is worse than Afghanistan !� It is especially ironic that the Asian country that has had the longest experience in Anglo-Saxon democracy (since 1905, under the Americans) has shown itself to be the least capable of holding an open, peaceful, democratic, fair and honest election. Worse than war-torn Iraq and equally war-ravaged Afghanistan . But then this is just one of the many contradictions that we have to live with. We pride ourselves that we are the only Christian and Roman Catholic country in Asia , yet we are also now the most corrupt. We have more than 40,000 lawyers and turn out thousands more every year, yet we are the most lawless country outside Mexico , Colombia , Brazil and Somalia .. Nevertheless we are thankful for small mercies, and this election has generated many really welcome and commendable developments that will hopefully lead to more and bigger improvements in our political life. We are thankful that Darlene Antonino-Custodio, a tiny wisp of a girl, has apparently dealt a knock-out punch on world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao. I do not doubt that Pacquiao had noble intentions of �helping the poor,� as he claimed, but he was out of his element outside the boxing ring. Not even his mother approved of his entering politics. And she was right in objecting. Every time Pacquiao opened his mouth, he revealed what many have long concluded, that he was the very personification of the Idiot Candidate. The people of his congressional district in Gen. Santos City are to be congratulated for their mature judgment. We are thankful that the priest Ed Panlilio is apparently winning over his rivals for governor of Pampanga: the incumbent Mark Lapid, who is accused of corruption in office, and Lilia Pineda, personal friend of President Arroyo and wife of the rumored lord of illegal gambling in Luzon , Bong Pineda. The people of Pampanga have shown that People Power is still alive and well, and are just waiting for the right leaders to emerge to reassert itself. The downside to this is that in the next elections (2010) we may see other priests running for other offices. We are thankful that movie actors Richard Gomez ( Ind ) and Cesar Montano (TU) have apparently lost in their bids for the Senate. In the quick counts and exit polls that I have seen, both are doing poorly, placing below the no. 20 spot , Gomez and Montano went into senatorial politics apparently with the expectation of doing another Lito Lapid or another Bong Revilla. But as I noted in my article GAGO versus TUTA (April 28), this election was a watershed political exercise in that it marked the end of the political rallies and �miting de avances� as the venue of choice through which voters, especially the masa voters, encountered the candidates. Many such rallies by both the administration and opposition coalitions were actually cancelled because of poor crowd turn-outs. Voters, including masa voters, are now more discerning and want to hear candidates articulate their positions in TV talk shows, rather than rely on the three-to-five minute spiels that each candidate is limited to in rallies. Singing, dancing and laughing are no longer enough to win hearts and minds, even those of the squealing masa.. That in itself is a major improvement in our political culture. We are thankful that Mr. Big Bucks Prospero Pichay is doing poorly in the early tabulations. In the exit poll of Pulse Asia, conducted nationwide on Election Day among 10,000 respondents who actually cast their ballots, Pichay came out in 14th place and may not make it to the final winning circle. According to the NGO Pera at Politika, Pichay spent more than P200 million on television ads alone, the highest for any senatorial candidate, and unknown millions in praise releases to all newspapers so that there was a constant stream of Pichay-this and Pichay-that stories and headlines on print. But despite his financial overkill, Pichay is not sure of winning and is in real danger of actually losing. Which again, is a sign of improvement in our political culture. TV viewers who were bombarded with his ubiquitous TV ads and newspaper readers who could not avoid seeing his praise releases, recognized them for what they were: no more than a hard sell by Mr. Big Bucks, and many of them did not buy. We are also thankful that senatorial candidate Koko Pimentel is in 15th place in the nationwide Pulse Asia exit poll and is in danger of losing. In fact, he may have already realized that he has lost. When he was interviewed by ANC by satellite feed from Cagayan de Oro City on Election Day, he was sullen and unsmiling in his demeanor, uncommunicative and monosyllabic in his replies. Signs of a (bad) loser. And he deserves to lose. The thrust of his ad campaign was to deceive voters into thinking that it was his father Nene who was running, capitalizing on their common name, Aquilino. A tactic that placed him within the Winning 12 in the early surveys and up to the late April survey of SWS. But as more and more voters realized that it was Koko and not the more famous Nene who was running, Koko�s ranking gradually slipped. Koko personified that famous quote from Abraham Lincoln: You may fool some of the people all the time, or all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. We are thankful that Alfredo Lim and Jesse Robredo won against the trapos and political dynasts in Manila and Naga City , respectively. But we are sorry that Grace Padaca has apparently been overwhelmed by the dynasts in Isabela. I am not a fan of Alan Peter Cayetano, who is in 13th place in the nationwide Pulse Asia exit poll. I did not want him to win, but now I hope that he does, if only to give political weight to the complaint he is filing with the Supreme Court against Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos. This complaint has to do with the failure of Comelec under Abalos to declare Joselito Cayetano a nuisance candidate (which he clearly was) early enough to remove Joselito from the list of approved senatorial candidates, and to rescind an earlier order to Comelec officials to treat as spoiled or stray ballots those that voted for �Cayetano.� . As a result of this deliberate and malicious delay on the part of the Comelec under Abalos, Alan Peter Cayetano claims (credibly) that he lost more than two million votes marked �Cayetano,� enough to knock him off the winning circle.. Win or lose, Alan Peter should pursue his complaint against Abalos, who undoubtedly did what he did on orders from Malacanang. And while he is at it, Alan Peter should also consider filing disbarment proceedings against KBL Lawyer-Liar Oliver Lozano who is the apparent mastermind of this scam, and file a case for malicious mischief (or worse) against Lozano�s dummy Joselito. These infuriating scams in our political culture will not stop until and unless guilty parties are made to pay for their diabolical cleverness. The biggest surprise, and a welcome one at that, is the unexpected and unforeseen rise of Antonio Trillanes IV as a major political player. In the last pre-election survey of SWS, which came out on April 28, Trillanes ranked 21st, one notch ahead of Richard Gomez. In the early tabulations of ABS-CBN-STI, Trillanes was ranking no. 12. I thought this was just a fluke due to heavy entry of votes from Metro Manila. But in the nationwide exit poll of Pulse Asia, Trillanes was no. 9, ahead of his mentor and kuya Gringo Honasan, ahead also of seasoned politicians like Miguel Zubiri, Ralph Recto, Prospero Pichay, Michael Defensor, Vic Sotto, John Osmena, etc And this even though he was in military detention all throughout the campaign as he is accused of being one of the leaders of the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny, and thus was largely invisible to most of the electorate, except for rare interviews on television. Here again, we see the superior power of TV over those silly rallies. Between the last SWS survey that came out on April 28 and Election Day on May 14, the largely invisible Trillanes, perhaps without even intending to, has caused an Intensity 4 tremor below the surface of Philippine politics. Whether this quake will cause a tsunami that will sweep across the land, or merely break up in the shallows, remains to be seen and will depend largely on how he plays his cards when he is allowed to by his jailers.. Will he be the New Magsaysay that Filipinos, especially the middle class, have been desperately searching for? Or, being now a threat to the ambitions of several high profile politicians (including Gloria Macapagal Arroyo), will he become the New Ninoy Aquino, who will wind up dead on arrival even before he can make his maiden speech? Or will he be the New Gringo Honasan, master of the failed coup and not much else? I will explore these possibilities in a future article. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and acabaya.blogspot.com OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |