“The electorate seems to have wised up, eschewing empty popularity”
LIKE many non-politicians who have been afflicted with a fever in the blood called politics, I stayed up late on Monday, going through Tuesday, to watch the unofficial tally of votes cast in the mid-term elections.
I fell asleep at around 1:30 on Tuesday morning when the counting showed a seeming trend, but for the last three senatorial positions in the so-called Magic Twelve and the 13th and 14th wannabe’s still a threat.
I woke up at 4:15 am only to discover that the tally was frozen, with more than 20 percent of the votes yet to be released to the media. By 10:00 am of the morning after, the tallied votes remained unmoved.
Chairman George Garcia was explaining the supposed glitch, trying to assure everyone that no “massaging” of the results was happening.
Mercifully, just before the commissioners trooped to the venue of the official canvass, the “clock” began to move, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief, eagerly anticipating the outcome, unofficial though these were.
In the end, the results were five for the Alyansa and Team Bongbong, another five for Team Sara, plus two poll survey outliers who were themselves suffused with disbelief at the final outcome.
On April 22, when I guested over Bilyonaryo TV’s On Point with the legendary Pinky Webb as program host, I made a fearless forecast: Team Sara would win five seats. The results proved my hunches right, gratifying for this political observer.
The survey winners Bong Go and Bato, plus Marcoleta, Camille and Imee made it, the last two having been endorsed by Inday Sara just days before that interview.
But what I predicted was that Team Bongbong would garner 6 seats, plus independent Ben Tulfo. I thought the third Tulfo would make the grade, along with Bong Revilla. The final fearless forecast in my mind that evening was 6 for Team Bongbong, 5 for Team Sara, and one independent, the third Tulfo.
When I watched the initial results after the polling precincts closed Monday night, I was surprised that Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan were going strong, with the celebrities outclassed by a strong wave of voter sentiment.
Willie Revillame, Manny Pacquiao, who I told Ms. Webb would lose if he does not make the grade in Mindanao; Ipe Salvador who the PDPs were betting heavily on, lost, and surprisingly, the man who changed his family name to incorporate his screen-famous first name, the head of a Cavite-based political dynasty, failed to make it too.
Lito Lapid, the genial no-talk, no-mistake senator made it, largely on the strength of his telenovela starrer and the efforts of top-paying actor Coco Martin.
The political landscape has changed, hopefully for the better. The electorate seems to have wised up, eschewing empty popularity.
The other observation I am pointing out is the “miracle” of Bam and Kiko. Explaining the same in an election watch program over Bilyonaryo TV last Tuesday, I emphasized two points to explain their unexpected showing, which the highly-publicized poll surveys failed to predict:
First, the two did not get into the Duterte-Marcos fray, even if their fellow “pinklawan” pundits were chiding them for not standing up for their “principles” which meant condemning Inday Sara and fPRRD who was shanghaied in the dead of night into a foreign prison.
They knew better, or were taught better.
Second, they always stuck to their message: politics of the stomach for Kiko, education and livelihood for Bam. They read the research on voters’ needs and wants, and concentrated on promising to deliver on these if elected.
Ironically, the same “pundits” who kept chiding them for not taking a stand on the Marcos-Duterte rift were now gloating on their touted “resurrection of the pink wave.”
Still and all, I am happy that Chel Diokno finally will become a legislator via the Akbayan route. He is one who I always voted for, even when I was on the other side of the political divide.
I am also very happy for kababayan Sol Aragones who made history for becoming the first native of San Pablo City to become governor of Laguna.
The last was Tomas Dizon, before him Potenciano Malvar and Marcos Paulino, all appointed during the American occupation. Since the Commonwealth and across several Republics, Laguna has been ruled by governors coming from the other districts, mainly from Calamba or the capital Sta. Cruz.
In Marinduque, my wife’s home province, the Velascos lost, governor Presby by a mile, and former speaker Lord Allan by a meter.
One of the issues that the opposition raised was that there is little progress in the island province, because unlike the other provinces under the Mimaropa chain, Marinduque had no “Jollibee.”
What a country where progress is measured by Jollibee’s presence, whose best-selling spaghetti my taste buds abhor.