Gibo’s aces

by Fel V. Maragay (Manila Standard)

Link:http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideOpinion.htm?f=2010/march/15/felmaragay.isx&d=2010/march/15

In presidential debates sponsored by various groups, former Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro always shines because of his wide range of knowledge about statecraft and the economy. He has a flair for presenting his plans and policies with clarity and conviction. He is clearly an intellectual. He is always rated as either number one or number two by the panel of moderators or jurors who assess the performance of the presidential wannabes in public forums.

After every presidential debate, public esteem and admiration for Teodoro inch several notches higher. On the other hand, those who fumble or make fools of themselves in the rhetorical exchange with their rivals have a cloud of doubt hanging over their heads. Do they actually have the ability to lead the nation? As a consequence, these pretenders to the presidential throne beg off from and skip forums where they will share center stage with their adversaries. Such show of poor sportsmanship and defeatist attitude could not but frustrate the electorate.

Despite having shown his mettle as a leader of high caliber in these verbal exercises, a lot of people remain cynical about Teodoro’s chances of winning the presidential derby. This is primarily because he has registered unimpressive ratings in surveys conducted by better known research outfits.

Such frustrating survey trend is enough to make candidates of lesser stuff throw in the towel half-way through the bruising electoral battle. But not Teodoro. On the contrary, not once has he shown any sign of vacillation about his presidential goal. Instead, he always exudes zeal, consistency and will to win and give his opponents a good fight.

“I will not stop until I am number one,” the Lakas-Kampi-CMD boldly declared before newsmen a few days ago.


With these fighting words, there is no more doubt that Teodoro will pursue the fight of his lifetime up to its logical end.

If this is how persistent and hopeful the administration standard bearer is in aiming for victory, it is because he and his campaign tacticians believe that he has the aces up his sleeves that give him tremendous advantage over his foes. For instance, they are upbeat about Gibo’s strong pulling power among the youth, the sector that comprises the single, largest voting bloc among the 50 million or so Filipino voters.

Then there is the formidable machinery of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD, the country’s biggest political party, and its capacity to deliver votes for its candidates in areas where it is in control.

That Teodoro is the favored candidate by the young voters has been proven in several random surveys and mock polls conducted in school campuses. In the latest mock poll among students of the University of Sto. Tomas. Senator Benigno Aquino III and Teodoro came out as the top choices by garnering 34.7 percent and 33.5 percent, respectively. Senator Richard Gordon of Bagumbayan party was ranked third with l5.4 percent. Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, UST rector, told a press briefing that with a difference of 0.7 percentage point in the scores of Aquino and Teodoro, they were “effectively at a statistical tie” in the third and final Political Opinions of the Youth Survey conducted Feb. 16-19 in which 40 percent of the pontifical university’s 35,889 students participated.

“The UST polls validated a persistent trend in campus mock polls indicating the former defense chief is emerging as a serious contender in the wings in what was originally perceived as a neck-and-neck fight between Senators Noynoy Aquino (Liberal Party) and Manny Villar (Nacionalista Party) for the presidency,” said former Press Secretary Mike Toledo, spokesman and director of the Gibo Media Bureau.

In similar mock polls conducted in other leading universities, the results were as follows: Ateneo de Manila: Teodoro 598 votes, Aquino 589; University of the Philippines (Diliman): Teodoro 1,669 or 25 percent, Aquino 1,481 or 22 percent; UP Mindanao: Teodoro 33.3 percent, Aquino 24 percent and Gordon 20 percent.

Just because Aquino and Villar have been topping the surveys undertaken by the Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations, the prevailing perception is that only the two contenders will slug it out as the presidential race reaches its final stages. But the survey numbers do not reflect the nationwide machinery of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD especially in areas where local party leaders have the means and resources to deliver command votes, according to Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno, one of the pillars of the ruling party.

“Both the Liberal Party and Nacionalista Party do not have too many candidates around the country. The LP has only 30 percent presence in the whole country. The NP has presence in only 40 out of 81 provinces. So, it’s really Lakas-Kampi that has a presence everywhere. So our approach is more on organization rather than media,” Puno says.

Toledo boasts that the ruling party has fielded candidates for 170 (or 73.9 percent) of congressional seats, 64 (or 80 percent) of the 86 gubernatorial posts, 86 (or 71.7 percent) of 126 city mayoral slots and 1,043 (or 69 percent) of about 1,500 municipal mayoral slots. “A machinery that reaches down to the grassroots would easily account for 15 percent of the votes for candidates for national posts. Once the official campaign period for local candidates starts on March 26, the full weight of the ruling party machinery will kick in to deliver the decisive number of votes that would catapult Gibo to the presidency via the May 10 balloting,” he adds.
Meanwhile, Metro Manila dailies including this newspaper published last week the findings of the third tracking poll of the independent research firm, Campaign and Image Group, ending March 7, which showed Villar obtaining 31 percent, Teodoro 24 percent, Aquino 20 percent and Estrada 13 percent. The survey outfit said the results indicated that “Gibo is the biggest gainer, Villar is holding on to his number one position but this could be transitory, and support for Aquino has been slipping—and fast.”

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Participating bidders for the new communications and surveillance system as part of the modernization of civil aviation are urging the Department of Transportation and Communications to ensure that there is a level playing field in the bidding process. Simply stated, no particular bidder should be unduly favored through questionable pre-qualification stage. A source, who requested anonymity, claims that the Japan International Cooperation Agency is unduly influencing the pre-qualification of bidders for the project to favor Sumitomo Corporation-Thales Australia Ltd.

While the project is being funded by Jica, this is in the form of an “untied” loan, which mean that this agency cannot dictate that the supplier should come from Japan or one that is favored by it. But by qualifying Sumitomo-Thales in that phase of the civil aviation project and disqualifying other capable bidders, then that is tantamount to giving the entire project to their favored supplier, Sumitomo-Thales, on a silver platter.

The project consists of two packages, the first costing $70 million and the second $120 million. Only two bidders have been pre-qualified—Sojitz Corp. and the joint venture of Sumitomo Corp. and Thales Australia Ltd. Whichever group gets Package 1 will have an edge in bagging Package 2 since the bulk of the expensive software it will deliver for the first package will be integrated with that of the second. Hence, it can afford a much lower bid for the second package.

Concerned parties are calling on the DOTC to conduct a thorough investigation on the alleged irregularities in the pre-qualification bidding process and to ensure fair and honest procedures in awarding the project. Let it be pointed out that since the funding for the aviation project is a loan and not a grant from Jica, to be repaid from the pockets of Filipino taxpayers, it should be treated as government money. Therefore, the government through the DOTC should have the final say on the project and should not allow itself to be influenced or dictated upon by Jica in the choice of the contractor.

The DOTC is also being asked to investigate why a supposedly blacklisted bidder, Thales, formerly Thomson-CSF, has been allowed and pre-qualified to bid for another project in the country. Recall that during the Ramos administration, the then Thomson-CSF was blacklisted by the government after failing to deliver on its contract package for the Globe Maritime Distress Safety System, which forced the Coast Guard to revert to using an antiquated system.