by Jojo A. Robles (Manila Standard)
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideOpinion.htm?f=2010/march/23/jojorobles.isx&d=2010/march/23
People who defend the iron grip that certain families have had on the politics of this country for generations like to say that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. The reality, of course, isn’t so easily contained in any aphorism, no matter how quaint and hoary.
Children may share the looks or other physical qualities of their parents, just as siblings and even cousins possess the same superficial attributes. But that’s as far as it goes, unless one is making a case to elect someone on the sole basis of familial ties.
We’ve seen this tree-to-fruit correspondence worked near to death in the case of Noynoy Aquino, even if we have no proof whatsoever that Noynoy is as politically astute and overachieving as his father or as sincere and well-meaning as his mother. Then, of course, there’s the matter of Kris Aquino, who shares even fewer of the outward attributes of either of her parents and who still has no qualms of pushing her brother’s candidacy—and even of explaining her own actions—because of this family connection.
If the people who regularly make this all-too-easy conclusion were truly honest, they’ll admit that they are merely justifying their own political leanings. Or simply hoping that the admirable qualities of the parents could somehow—despite a ton of evidence to the contrary—be transferred to their offspring.
Indeed, even the Aquino camp has already moved on from the Ninoy-Cory link that they constantly bombarded people with at the beginning of the campaign, perhaps after seeing how this strategy has only made Noynoy steadily lose ground to his less pedigreed rivals. After all, if Noynoy did somehow inherit his forebears’ good qualities (and only the good ones, mind you), what does that make Gibo Teodoro, who comes from the same family, after all?
* * *
Mike Toledo, the former Erap press secretary now working with the Gilbert Teodoro presidential campaign, explains that Team Gibo has a surefire strategy for winning the elections in May. The grand plan involves a decent start, a surge at midway and closing the campaign with a bang at the homestretch.
It cannot be denied that Teodoro, the administration candidate, was slow out of the gate. In poll after poll before the start of the official campaign period, Gibo tracked near the bottom of the surveys, attracting low single-digit numbers while the frontrunners surged ahead.
For the Teodoro campaign, this qualifies as the aforementioned decent start, given that their candidate did not have the instant name recall of Noynoy Aquino and Joseph Estrada nor the resources of Manny Villar. Teodoro and his supporters plodded along, believing that their candidate could still get into the mix, if only he could be made known to voters at large after he had convinced a small core of true believers who swore that they had the best candidate by far.
At that early stage, Teodoro did encounter a hurdle that the other candidates did not have to confront, and which continues to make his rise difficult to this day. While Teodoro seemed to have the potential, the intelligence, the personal charisma, the track record and many other positive attributes that people look for in a presidential candidate, he was hobbled by his association with the Arroyo administration amid a field dominated by candidates who made quick and regular political capital out of bashing the incumbent.
In fact, his front-running cousin Noynoy has made blaming the admittedly unpopular Arroyo government a major pillar of his own campaign, often by tarring Villar with the same broad brush that can rightly be employed only in the case of Teodoro. To prove the efficacy of this ploy of guilt by association one more time, Aquino has recently decided to test this same strategy on Estrada, whom Noynoy now accuses of being the undeserving beneficiary of a presidential pardon, even if the entire Aquino family has only been signing Erap’s praises exclusively heretofore.
Through it all, Gibo stayed the course, gamely defending administration policy and even brushing off unfounded contentions— because unproven to this day—that he was actually some sort of political straw man put up to be knocked down in favor of the supposed “true” Arroyo candidate in the person of Villar. That this allegation has been unquestioningly swallowed and spread by Aquino supporters even if it was merely concocted by the fevered brains of the Noynoy campaign must have made it doubly hard for Gibo to find the traction that he needed early on.
Last week, which according to Toledo’s timetable must have been at or around the midpoint of the campaign, Gibo’s camp trotted out a survey conducted by an outfit called Campaigns and Image Group whose results had Teodoro firmly in second place after Villar, with Aquino in third and Estrada a far fourth. In that survey, reportedly the third such poll carried out Campaigns on presidential candidates, Villar got 31 percent, Teodoro 24 percent and Aquino 20 percent, while Estrada placed fourth with 13 percent.
That was the same survey that drew a quick and adverse reaction from former Ambassador Henrietta de Villa, head of the Church-based poll watchdog group Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, after the poll was referred to in some reports as having been conducted by PPCRV. The head of Campaigns—which is supposed to have a track record of conducting surveys for foreign companies—had to clarify that some PPCRV members helped conduct the survey “in a private capacity.”
(In his company’s defense, Campaigns managing director Avelino Canturias found it unusual that only his outfit’s third survey had drawn the ire of the Church group. This could have less to do with the questioned involvement of PPCRV and more because his group’s latest poll put Aquino in third place for the first time, something that did not sit well with sectors of the Church that favored a Noynoy victory, he said.)
In this manner, no less controversy wracked than at the beginning, did the campaign’s midpoint pass for Gibo’s campaign. Now only the homestretch remains—and the big endgame push that Teodoro’s backers foresee taking place in their playbook.
* * *
Teodoro’s camp sees two factors coming into play at the final stages of the campaign that they hope will put their candidate over the top: the supposed efficacy of the administration’s party machinery and the youth vote, which Gibo’s boosters say will definitely go to their candidate.
Toledo said the youth, who comprise the majority of the voters, seem to have been convinced that Teodoro “is the most qualified and deserving to be the country’s next president, given his impressive credentials and proposed concrete programs to address the country’s pressing woes.”
The youth is “a potent sector that does not easily fall for the campaign gimmicks and empty promises made by candidates.” Young voters, he added, have consistently chosen Teodoro in surveys and mock presidential elections held in the various universities and colleges that Gibo has visited nationwide.
“They have either witnessed for themselves how he has outshone his rivals during presidential forums and debates or heard him explain his doable platform of government in clear, simple terms,” Toledo explained. “The youth is not only the most discerning, but is also the biggest voting bloc in this year’s elections.”
Teodoro has the same effect on people outside of the schools who have seen Teodoro in various debates and forums, Toledo explained. “Every presidential forum elevates the impression and perception of Gibo several notches higher. He is more brilliant. He has mastery of the country’s problems and he has been offering the most superior solutions,” said Toledo.
Gibo’s other secret weapon is the Lakas-Kampi campaign machinery, which he said extends down to the grassroots. “The ruling party has candidates for 170 or 73.9 percent of all House seats up for grabs, 64 or 80 percent of the 86 gubernatorial posts, 86 or 71.7 percent of 126 city mayoralty slots and 1,043 or 69 percent of all seats for municipal mayors,” he explained.
“A machinery that reaches down to the grassroots easily accounts for 15 percent of the votes for a candidate vying for a national post. In contrast, Gibo’s closest rivals can only fill up candidates in as much as 41 percent of the local posts at stake in May,” Toledo added.
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideOpinion.htm?f=2010/march/23/jojorobles.isx&d=2010/march/23
People who defend the iron grip that certain families have had on the politics of this country for generations like to say that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. The reality, of course, isn’t so easily contained in any aphorism, no matter how quaint and hoary.
Children may share the looks or other physical qualities of their parents, just as siblings and even cousins possess the same superficial attributes. But that’s as far as it goes, unless one is making a case to elect someone on the sole basis of familial ties.
We’ve seen this tree-to-fruit correspondence worked near to death in the case of Noynoy Aquino, even if we have no proof whatsoever that Noynoy is as politically astute and overachieving as his father or as sincere and well-meaning as his mother. Then, of course, there’s the matter of Kris Aquino, who shares even fewer of the outward attributes of either of her parents and who still has no qualms of pushing her brother’s candidacy—and even of explaining her own actions—because of this family connection.
If the people who regularly make this all-too-easy conclusion were truly honest, they’ll admit that they are merely justifying their own political leanings. Or simply hoping that the admirable qualities of the parents could somehow—despite a ton of evidence to the contrary—be transferred to their offspring.
Indeed, even the Aquino camp has already moved on from the Ninoy-Cory link that they constantly bombarded people with at the beginning of the campaign, perhaps after seeing how this strategy has only made Noynoy steadily lose ground to his less pedigreed rivals. After all, if Noynoy did somehow inherit his forebears’ good qualities (and only the good ones, mind you), what does that make Gibo Teodoro, who comes from the same family, after all?
* * *
Mike Toledo, the former Erap press secretary now working with the Gilbert Teodoro presidential campaign, explains that Team Gibo has a surefire strategy for winning the elections in May. The grand plan involves a decent start, a surge at midway and closing the campaign with a bang at the homestretch.
It cannot be denied that Teodoro, the administration candidate, was slow out of the gate. In poll after poll before the start of the official campaign period, Gibo tracked near the bottom of the surveys, attracting low single-digit numbers while the frontrunners surged ahead.
For the Teodoro campaign, this qualifies as the aforementioned decent start, given that their candidate did not have the instant name recall of Noynoy Aquino and Joseph Estrada nor the resources of Manny Villar. Teodoro and his supporters plodded along, believing that their candidate could still get into the mix, if only he could be made known to voters at large after he had convinced a small core of true believers who swore that they had the best candidate by far.
At that early stage, Teodoro did encounter a hurdle that the other candidates did not have to confront, and which continues to make his rise difficult to this day. While Teodoro seemed to have the potential, the intelligence, the personal charisma, the track record and many other positive attributes that people look for in a presidential candidate, he was hobbled by his association with the Arroyo administration amid a field dominated by candidates who made quick and regular political capital out of bashing the incumbent.
In fact, his front-running cousin Noynoy has made blaming the admittedly unpopular Arroyo government a major pillar of his own campaign, often by tarring Villar with the same broad brush that can rightly be employed only in the case of Teodoro. To prove the efficacy of this ploy of guilt by association one more time, Aquino has recently decided to test this same strategy on Estrada, whom Noynoy now accuses of being the undeserving beneficiary of a presidential pardon, even if the entire Aquino family has only been signing Erap’s praises exclusively heretofore.
Through it all, Gibo stayed the course, gamely defending administration policy and even brushing off unfounded contentions— because unproven to this day—that he was actually some sort of political straw man put up to be knocked down in favor of the supposed “true” Arroyo candidate in the person of Villar. That this allegation has been unquestioningly swallowed and spread by Aquino supporters even if it was merely concocted by the fevered brains of the Noynoy campaign must have made it doubly hard for Gibo to find the traction that he needed early on.
Last week, which according to Toledo’s timetable must have been at or around the midpoint of the campaign, Gibo’s camp trotted out a survey conducted by an outfit called Campaigns and Image Group whose results had Teodoro firmly in second place after Villar, with Aquino in third and Estrada a far fourth. In that survey, reportedly the third such poll carried out Campaigns on presidential candidates, Villar got 31 percent, Teodoro 24 percent and Aquino 20 percent, while Estrada placed fourth with 13 percent.
That was the same survey that drew a quick and adverse reaction from former Ambassador Henrietta de Villa, head of the Church-based poll watchdog group Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, after the poll was referred to in some reports as having been conducted by PPCRV. The head of Campaigns—which is supposed to have a track record of conducting surveys for foreign companies—had to clarify that some PPCRV members helped conduct the survey “in a private capacity.”
(In his company’s defense, Campaigns managing director Avelino Canturias found it unusual that only his outfit’s third survey had drawn the ire of the Church group. This could have less to do with the questioned involvement of PPCRV and more because his group’s latest poll put Aquino in third place for the first time, something that did not sit well with sectors of the Church that favored a Noynoy victory, he said.)
In this manner, no less controversy wracked than at the beginning, did the campaign’s midpoint pass for Gibo’s campaign. Now only the homestretch remains—and the big endgame push that Teodoro’s backers foresee taking place in their playbook.
* * *
Teodoro’s camp sees two factors coming into play at the final stages of the campaign that they hope will put their candidate over the top: the supposed efficacy of the administration’s party machinery and the youth vote, which Gibo’s boosters say will definitely go to their candidate.
Toledo said the youth, who comprise the majority of the voters, seem to have been convinced that Teodoro “is the most qualified and deserving to be the country’s next president, given his impressive credentials and proposed concrete programs to address the country’s pressing woes.”
The youth is “a potent sector that does not easily fall for the campaign gimmicks and empty promises made by candidates.” Young voters, he added, have consistently chosen Teodoro in surveys and mock presidential elections held in the various universities and colleges that Gibo has visited nationwide.
“They have either witnessed for themselves how he has outshone his rivals during presidential forums and debates or heard him explain his doable platform of government in clear, simple terms,” Toledo explained. “The youth is not only the most discerning, but is also the biggest voting bloc in this year’s elections.”
Teodoro has the same effect on people outside of the schools who have seen Teodoro in various debates and forums, Toledo explained. “Every presidential forum elevates the impression and perception of Gibo several notches higher. He is more brilliant. He has mastery of the country’s problems and he has been offering the most superior solutions,” said Toledo.
Gibo’s other secret weapon is the Lakas-Kampi campaign machinery, which he said extends down to the grassroots. “The ruling party has candidates for 170 or 73.9 percent of all House seats up for grabs, 64 or 80 percent of the 86 gubernatorial posts, 86 or 71.7 percent of 126 city mayoralty slots and 1,043 or 69 percent of all seats for municipal mayors,” he explained.
“A machinery that reaches down to the grassroots easily accounts for 15 percent of the votes for a candidate vying for a national post. In contrast, Gibo’s closest rivals can only fill up candidates in as much as 41 percent of the local posts at stake in May,” Toledo added.
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