Where the political class stands as of the deadline for officially filing candidacies, a thread taking off from my piece yesterday.
https://twitter.com/mlq3/status/1447363203487309827
As I wrote some time ago, because of a six year presidential term with no reelection and because every administration has a fixed majority for its useful life, when that useful life ends, nearly everyone suddenly becomes opposition, which is why real oppositionists get edged out.
Since administrations more often than not have little effect on who replaces them, their energies are better spent strategically placing people in institutions like the SC to ensure persecution of them is ineffective: GMA was best at this. So-called machinery counts for little.
The President's legal advisers were clever in the case of the SC. For every vacancy they managed in some instances to have two appointees: a short term replacement and then a replacement to the replacement who's younger and thus will last over their successor's presidency.
It remains to be seen if the appointments have been as extensive, and well-selected, as in GMA's time but in the end even if this were so, the next president can decide whether to protect the President from the ICC, etc., or not. But here enters the problem of short-sightedness.
The first half of the current presidency was spent in a showdown between two factions (every administration has two or more factions: presidential power and control comes from effectively juggling them and making them compete). Evasco had a totalitarian vision: a new mass mvt....
and fundamental changes to government (revamping the bureaucracy) and the rules of the game (a new constitution). Against him was Go who represented business as usual. They played tug of war through executive issuances of the President and over time Go won. Tactics over strategy.
Entirely possible what Go pushed was why antagonize all the local and national barons with scary radical schemes when the President can just bully opposition into the ground, everybody is happy. Which was fine so long as the President remained bulletproof by maintaining an...
aura of incorruptibility: his relatively modest habits and effective shielding of his activities from prying eyes meant whatever one thought of him, he couldn't be called a crook. But Pharmally ended that or, more precisely, finally tipped the balance. Which is not to say all...
believe it, but a weighty number of people do, as the surveys showed. But at the same time, if the President suddenly encountered public dislike for his vice-presidential scheme, and even Daughterte showed signs of taking a hit because of dear old dad, the Prexy for his part... 
showed he had clout: he might not be able to raise his own brand but he could take other people's brands down: in the same period Daughterte took a hit, Yorme took a hit too: after attacking the President and being attacked in turn by the President. The lesson for Yorme then,
is to recognize that directly attacking the President who may be down but isn't out, who may be tarnished but is still more popular than most, isn't adding any votes. It thus also explains his ultimate indifference and then hostility to the idea of an opposition. In their...
political math, going directly against the President isn't a plus. Which is not to say he is some kind of "secret candidate." He isn't --nor does he need to be. Though what they clearly believe he needs, is to be conciliatory with a President who can still sling mud and whose...
supporters will still look badly at anyone who denounces the past six years. The same applies to the Marcos machine: Yorme will treat them with kid gloves because it's too early to put yourself directly in the line of fire of the Marcos billions which may no longer be supreme but
can at least still match say the Razon or Ang billions. Easier and more in keeping with what pleases both the Marcos and Duterte types, to pick on the opposition that's no longer worth joining, in the hope they will remain in the ghetto and marginalized. Put another way, the most
bulletproof campaign of all, is that of TitoSen, who combines both political pedigree and being showbiz royalty giving him the widest reach and the most proven vote-getting ability to the extent he is beyond the range of VP contenders and acceptable to nearly all prexy seekers.
More surprising is Ping Lacsons relatively droopy showing but its a marathon and not a race and as the economy remains bad crime, already anecdotally quite bad can only become worse: positioning him to be a Duterte with self-control. His problem is the innate Duterte-Marcos…
affinity but there the business as usual methods of Go and friends collided with that unquantifiable thing, personal feelings. Go might have been Caligula’s horse but Daughterte by all accounts wants to put the horse to pasture and it means there remains little reason to push her
To give up what the Marcoses referring to Ilocos Norte call their “grand duchy” in their case, Davao. Even at the height of their power Alvarez was able to try to not only make inroads but take down powerful loyal allies like Floirendo: as all politics is local they cannot afford
a home invasion when they will need to be barricaded in Davao with as much safety as the Binays were in Makati or Arroyos in Pampanga or Marcoses in Ilocos Norte. And can you honestly put the grand duchy in the hands of any of the President’s sons? Though the temptation is there
To put up a Marcos-Duterte dream team but there is also bickering over top billing: MD or DM? And where does that leave Go the one the President can depend on more than his daughter? There is another temptation, to brazen it out and run regardless of the Marcoses but that would…
make Daughterte potentially the Grace Poe of 2022: dividing the formerly dominant coalition. The result was the administration ran out of time to figure out and achieve a poweful tandem for 2022 by deadline time. The sudden substitution of Bato shows how they are scrambling to…
patch together a winning tandem before the end result has to be BBM-Go which antagonizes Daughterte and friends who include other parts of the old coalition. It still leaves both the BBM and Yorme campaigns having to look nervously at Ping and Pacman who can be potent spoilers…
In such a battle second choices increasingly become the people to watch: the dominant players can be so busy demolishing each other someone else picks up the pieces. That was the case with the President. It may be Ping is better situated for this than Leni who can scoop up
those who formerly supported the President but have lost faith starting with the ones who’d voted DU30-Leni in 2016. But the momentum of conversion remains with BBM at a time when traditional means of campaigning or influence are waning: mass media’s hold is less, there are…
entire institutions who can’t risk a repudiation of the past six years, but there are also entire generations and sectors energized to push back against the Marcoses and these are whom Yorme hopes to scoop up by not antagonizing them until theyve seen the light and switch…
I still think a natural alignment will exist between Yorme-TitoSen but as I said TitoSen is so well placed he can afford not to be antagonistic of anyone. Much as there are built-in tensions the logical alliance is Marcos-Duterte but it will grate on the current rulers to be…
playing second fiddle to the Marcoses but both can expect much more push back than they did before. This leaves the opposition in a precarious place: learning to set up a big tent after the comforting but limiting solidarity felt before from shared defeat and persecution. It…
can work but Middle coalitions have always been quarrelsome, ill-disciplined, precisely because from the Middle and ideologically-inclined sub-groupings. It has the advantage now of embracing the birth pains of a new era, while the rest look back.
Finally a quick review of points I’ve made about the political class. For quite a few electoral cycles collectively theyve had to deal with some discouraging trends: 1. Internal migration means old ties of ethnicity culture shared experience and loyalty no longer apply; voters…
have become increasingly mercenary (especially locally but perhaps increasingly nationally). This makes elections increasingly expensive. For non mercenary voters the media that works best is TV for national and social media in general and without even going into trolling its…
costly. Add to this another problem: as economy expanded there were many other opportunities to rise in the world without the danger and hassle of politics so fewer wanted to compete and for the fewer still competing it was necessary for formerly competing families to sit down…
and divide positions among themselves hence more unopposed candidates. On the other hand a public on whom media itself had less of a hold means new names and faces have less of a chance, nationally, to rise up which increases the viability of those who already have exposure: so…
returning veterans or showbiz personalities. What remains to be seen is if social media really changes minds or is simply the most efficient way to identify the already convinced or predisposed and mobilizing them. But are there still people who can be converted? The surveys come
into play here in identifying where they are which again brings up can social media change these minds? My hunch is its mass media specifically ads that can do that, but that’s just a hunch. It may be that personally going campaigning will matter more in the pandemic era when we
have been separated from each other and will appreciate more when someone braves their way to our neck of rhe woods.
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