Thread by @mlq3

A quick thread on where we seem to be. While every ruling coalition will have its fair share of longstanding leaders, it also means a rearrangement of the pecking order.

The faces of the ruling coalition we shouldn’t fail to forget, included a new paramount family. As the hierarchy is reconfigured the ones who do best are those who recognize it and demonstrate they know it.

Each President manages differently but there are types of President and that includes those who freely delegate their powers to those they consider able and useful subordinates. Thus factions are created, and the President had two major ones within the ranks of the old reliables.

Everyone else had to pick sides, between Go and Evasco though in the end one faction from the old reliables won the behind the scenes battle for the soul of the administration, fought out through executive orders.

But there is also another faction, a faction of one: the President’s daughter.

When the Speaker of the House grew drunk with influence and bragged even the President had better watch out as he could impeach him and worse, started to try to exert influence in Davao, she acted.

We know what famously happened, the first time in our political history the selection of a Speaker was done without presidential knowledge or approval. Here it was as much a matter of stabilizing the ruling coalition as it was the elimination of a subordinate (Alvarez).

The alliance that was demonstrated then persisted until Arroyo’s term was up; after that a safe Speaker was selected. But she’s back and it’s here that her methodical style contrasted with PDP-Laban’s bumbling methods for securing the succession.

In the present reshuffle the ones out are the old hands and close lieutenants of the President, as his daughter has taken center stage elbowing aside his advisers and formal party affiliation. Marcos Jr for his part is experiencing what his dad did to Diosdado Macapagal.

Here the two ladies seem to be the political adults in the room, recognizing they have a shared interest in maintaining the ruling coalition’s hold on power without risking an opposition win or just as bad, a Marcos Restoration which would involve settling scores for the Marcoses

At the very least the leverage of the President and his family is restored after being bumbled away by PDP-Laban with sarisfaction of putting Go in his place and forcing if it comes to that a hefty accomodation by the Marcoses. Or if not, taking the wind out of the Marcoses sails

And that’s where we seem to be as of this moment with three days to go before the battle lines are finally clearly drawn.