Destiny

"The answer is written in the stars."

Some events in the first week of August, the beginnings of the “ghost month” in the Oriental lunar calendar, recalled to my mind a rather trite, but true observation in politics: that the presidency is a matter of destiny.

President Rodrigo Duterte last week said that President Cory Aquino became popular only because her husband (Ninoy Aquino) was assassinated during the reign of President Marcos.

One can interpret the President’s statement in various ways, not necessarily exclusive of each other.  It could be a denigration of Cory’s role in our history; that she was just an accidental leader.  Perhaps.

Kris Aquino very deftly thanked the President for attributing the death of her father in the hands of the previous dictator instead of publicly taking offense. Kris really knows how to properly communicate.  It was almost like “touche” as the French would say. 

Whichever and whatever, the ascent of Cory Aquino after the assassination of her husband Ninoy at the tarmac of the international airport, the 36th anniversary of which the nation will commemorate 16 days hereafter, was certainly a matter of destiny.

The death of Ninoy galvanized opposition to martial rule, and when Marcos mistakenly called for “snap” elections in November of 1985 in an ABC interview, the emotional demand for Ninoy’s widow to be the champion of the opposition in the February 1986 elections reached crescendo levels.

Doy Laurel, who had painstakingly built up the opposition ranks since 1982 under the United Nationalist Democratic Organization from the remains of the pre-martial law Nacionalista and Liberal parties, had to give way to the emotional outpouring for Ninoy’s widow. The rest is history.

Despite the Comelec-certified results, events finally led to the mutiny, the break-away that precipitated the Edsa people power uprising.  In four dramatic days of February, Marcos had to flee to Hawaii, and Cory Aquino became president of the country.  Destiny.

The other event last week was Mayor Inday Sara Duterte repeating an oft-stated reaction to questions about her political plans in 2022, that it was all up to the Almighty.  

But Pastor Apollo Quiboloy jumped the gun by proclaiming that he had received signs from heaven that Inday Sara would indeed be president of the land after her father.

Again, whether you agree with Quiboloy or not, he invokes destiny.

Let’s take a brief nostalgic trip to the past (at least as far as when I was already conscious): In March of 1957, on an early morning trip back to Manila from the old airfield in Lahug, Cebu, the hugely popular President Ramon Magsaysay, a cinch for reelection eight months after for a second term, perished in Mt. Manunggal in Cebu a few minutes after takeoff.  His vice president, the obscure Boholano Carlos P. Garcia, who the Nacionalista Party was about to ditch as Magsaysay’s teammate, returned from a trip to Australia as the new president. Destiny.

In 1957, the vice presidential candidate of the Liberals, a rather obscure Pampanga congressman who started his career in the foreign service, Diosdado P. Macapagal, triumphed over Jose Bayani Laurel Jr., Garcia’s vice presidential teammate.  And four years after, in 1961, Macapagal defeated Garcia to become president, after promising the fast-rising political star of the north, fellow Liberal Ferdinand Marcos, that he would serve only one term.

In 1964, a year before the elections of 1965, Marcos, with the help of Speaker Jose B. Laurel Jr., jumped into the opposition Nacionalista party, and ran against incumbent Macapagal.  Ferdinand Marcos ascended to the presidency, won reelection in 1969 against the Liberal’s Sergio Osmeña Jr., and through masterful political skills, even skullduggery, ruled for a total of 20 years and almost two months, close to fourteen of these as authoritarian leader.  Destiny.

In the Edsa uprising of 1986, the triggers were Marcos’ defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and AFP vice-chief of staff and the president’s cousin, Fidel Valdez Ramos.  But a year into the destined Cory’s presidency, Enrile fell out of grace, while Ramos bided his time within the leadership circle during the tumultuous years that bedeviled Cory Aquino with several coup attempts.

Ramos joined the humongous Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino headed by Cory’s brother, Peping Cojuangco Jr., and challenged then Speaker Ramon V. Mitra Jr. in party convention in 1991.  He lost miserably to the traditional politician’s champion, Tata Monching.

He bolted the party with only six congressmen, formed his own party,  Lakas,  then got Cory to endorse him as her choice.  He squeaked into a narrow, very, very slim victory.  Destiny.

Joseph Ejercito Estrada, who was also a presidential candidate in 1992, decided mid-way through the campaign to slide down to vice-president in the ticket of Danding Cojuangco.  He won, and though side-lined in the Ramos presidency to chief cop under the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission, gained tremendous popularity for the next electoral round of 1998.

But a fly in the ointment appeared: the Nora Aunor recreated Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the former president’s daughter who, after topping the senatorial elections in 1995, became immensely popular as well, a political threat to Estrada.

But for seeming paucity of resources, GMA decided to postpone her political ambitions and settle for the vice-presidency with FVR’s endorsed Jose de Venecia Jr.  The result: Estrada won in 1998, but GMA won as the vice-president.  Partial destiny.

Two years and seven months into the presidency of Erap, Edsa Dos happened. GMA as constitutional successor, became president.  Truly destined.

In 2009, the leading candidates to succeed GMA were the billionaire Manny Villar, the returning Erap, the heir to political and business fortune Senator Mar Roxas, the “kilabot ng kolehiyala” Senator Chiz Escudero, Olongapo’s Dick Gordon, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro, even Marikina’s Bayani Fernando.

Another obscure senator, Benigno Simeon Aquino III, was not even dreaming of the presidency in 2009.  But on August 1, his mother Cory died after a lingering bout with cancer.  In just a little over a month, the emotional outpouring favored Noynoy to become president by 2010.  Destiny once more.

And then in 2014, everyone thought Vice President Jojo Binay was a shoo-in for the presidency.  But by the last quarter of that year, a lot of dirt on his storied past as mayor of Makati was dug up. The descent started.

So the adopted daughter of moviedom’s king FPJ, who many believed was cheated of the presidency by GMA in 2004, Grace Poe, decided to jump into the fray, and every betting man started flocking to her side.

Yet, a mayor from the deep South started creeping into the national consciousness, slowly but surely beginning January of 2015.  With a lot of political drama along the way, many quite controversial even, Rodrigo Roa Duterte triumphed overwhelmingly come May of 2016.

Truly destiny.

So what about 2022, when the still highly popular President Duterte, by way of constitutional term limit, ends his presidency?

Will it be his daughter Inday Sara? Or Vice President Leni Robredo? Or the senatorial topnotcher Cynthia Villar,  perhaps her husband Manny? Or Senator Ping Lacson?  Or Senate President Tito Sotto? Senadora Grace Poe? Senator Dick Gordon? Speaker Alan Cayetano?  Manny the Pacman Pacquiao?  Senadora Imee or her brother Bongbong?  Or even current political rockstar Mayor Isko Domagoso?   

The answer, too early to divine, is written in the stars.