Afraid of Erap

from FRONTLINE by Ninez Cacho-Olivarez (The Daily Tribune)
http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100122com2.html

It beats me why the civil socialites and their presidential candidate continue to stress that Erap Estrada’s being cleared by the poll body for his second presidential run is still not final, as this issue would still be elevated to the high court. At the same time, two political groups keep on spreading the rumor that Estrada is ready to withdraw from the race to endorse their candidates.

Fidel Ramos, commenting on Estrada being cleared by the poll body to run for the presidency, said Erap should hold the bubbly, since this is still a long process, as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decision can be overturned by the high court. So what is it to him?

Former Comelec chairman Christian Monsod quickly claimed that the Comelec erred in not disqualifying Estrada, as the constitutional ban against a reelection of a president is clear. Monsod is not the Comelec, nor the SC. He had his day in the Comelec, so why come up with his view?

But both are known to be anti-Estrada and supporting a different presidential candidate.

And there went Noynoy Aquino, commenting on the Comelec clearing of Estrada’s run, saying he will be consulting his lawyers on this. Hello? What’s he going to do? File a disqualification case against Estrada? The time limit has been up sometime ago. And he certainly can’t intervene in this matter.

But that’s really odd, coming from them, especially when it is they — along with other  presidential rivals and their supporters, especially in the media — haven’t stopped pointing out that Estrada no longer has the same hold over the masses; that he is a poor third in pre-poll surveys, not to mention that they always state he is a convicted plunderer.

If these same anti-Erap groups truly believe in what they claim, why then are they so fearful of Estrada being cleared of legal obstacles by the Comelec for a second presidential run, since, as they say, he has no chance of winning the presidency again, and that the presidential fight is between Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar?

An explanation to this is that with Estrada out of the presidential race, the LPs and their supporters will gain more votes, with the claim of Estrada endorsing Noynoy on the part of the LP. The Nacionalista Party and its supporters believe that with Estrada out of the race, he will be endorsing Manny Villar, or at least that is the talk that the NPs are spreading — that Erap is going to withdraw and endorse Villar, which will hardly happen, either way, since Estrada is determined to make a second run.

The way I see it, even as Noynoy and Villar have generated the perception that they are the two strong presidential bets, being survey frontrunners, they also know that those numbers in the surveys may change drastically, with Estrada now given the green light to run, by the Comelec. They also know that survey votes are not ballot votes.

What is more likely is that the two presidential bets from the NP and the LP, are pretty insecure about their voting strengths with Estrada around.

For one, Noynoy has been losing points, with some point support going to his cousin, Gilbert Teodoro, who appears successful in marketing himself as an intelligent presidential bet and a doer, while Noynoy, no matter what he, along with his propagandists — portrays himself, comes off as ignorant, arrogant and worse, with absolutely no administrative and managerial experience, not to mention his utter lack of a legislative record for the 11 years he has been in  Congress.

At the same time, Villar is running scared over the probable impact of the Senate committee of the whole report on his candidacy, as it has found him guilty of unethical conduct, plus the return of the amount of P6 billion, a loss which the report said was suffered by the Filipino people.

The thing is, if Villar had not panicked, he could have turned it around by responding to the allegations in that report.

Instead, he and his supporters in the Senate came up with the boycott idea, and even attempted a coup against Johnny Enrile. As it failed, the situation and the controversy piled up and lengthened.

So now, their target is Estrada, since they know that on the ground, Erap still holds the masses.