Even hours before the national executive committee of the merged Lakas-Kampi would have voted secretly, 42-5 in favor of Gibo, former colleagues from the House of Representatives of defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro already served advance notice that he will be the party’s standard bearer. Not a BF. Therefore, as so it is said, so it shall be done and done it was. Left in the cold, BF will not be his own man.
BF’s long-time investment as loyal to the party since 1992 did not pay off. On the other end of the scale, a newly recruited one-month old party member in the person of Gibo earned him a fortune far greater than what he has invested by way of rate of return. Therefore, Gibo may have just violated cardinal party norms in the unseen process. But so be it.
This comeuppance is telling. Call to mind that Mar, the president of the Liberal Party suffered the same fate when he himself has to give way to a Noynoy Aquino simply because the latter asked for it perhaps so cavalierly. Within the Nationalist People’s Coalition itself, it has been a political tug of war between a Chiz and a Loren.
As events unfold in the political landscape, it is even more telling to now find a Noynoy on one end of the spectrum and a Gibo on the other hand – as they are cousins on the side of the Cojuangcos. Does this happenstance come as a departure from the vicious invasion of the phenomenon that we call ‘political families’, dynasty if you will? Plainly, it is. Not to be taken for granted is the fact that Noynoy, in case he wins is a son of a former president just like GMA.
History repeats itself, come to think of it. We have GMA as older generations also had DM (Diosdado Macapagal). Just as we had Cory, would we have a Noynoy as if we wish to ‘overextend’ the term of Cory? The same holds for GMA if it were already the negative version of a once ‘better’ president in the person of her father. It is for history to also attest more accurately as to the real score in the political topography of their respective historical periods.
Who did not say that for every action, there is a corresponding counter-action? This is what resulted in the selection process of the merged administration party from the point of view of former Speaker Jose de Venecia as he posited it to be illegal, null and void. Certainly, he believes that Gibo was not elected by a ‘legit group’ but rather by a ‘cabal of limited few’.
Facts are indubitably clear. There was not a convention held for the purpose to be participated in by as much number as possible in order to really represent the sentiment of the party at large. But then again, one can just as quickly dismissed this whole fiasco as one of ‘intra-party’ feuds but would be more likely veer away from truth.
Events that recently unfolded such as the Noynoy fresh-from-the-40th-day grief play dramatic and this Gibo marathon drama hatched exceedingly quick. It most wantonly displaced BF whose belief in loyalty to the party as the highest premium has been betrayed. After all, he is not a member of this so-called “Old Boys Club’ that my former boss, Prospero Pichay has always bragged about.
To bank of party machinery is old-fashioned thinking. JDV failed on it dismally when he run for president and so too with Gibo, most predictably. Comparatively, Gibo is even made of lesser stuff in terms of overall statesmanship, so he just might be holding on the wrong rope. But a lot more interfacing realities are cracked open this time that Gibo is being launched as the presidential candidate to beat. Why?
Gibo will be joined by DILG Puno in a perceptibly ideal tandem. Will it work? What does that publicly express from the point of view of impact analysis or the Lakatosian futuristic programmes? Well, we can see the rearing of some ugly heads – the armed might of not just the Armed Forces of the Philippines but more so with the armed might of the Philippine National Police. There is reason to be scared given the perceived orientation of a Gibo to allow a kinder if kids’ glove treatment for a GMA post-presidential term immunity.
Now that Bayani lost his precious bid to walk out with an empty bag, what else is new? BF would have wished, as he did appeal, that all party members should have been allowed to choose and not just by a the committee. How the party proceeded with this selection is a public statement itself that again, there must have been a ‘lapse in judgment’ as it did crack open some potential legal disputes in its exercise. At bottom, the democratic criterion has been subverted.
There seems to be one last route to tread for BF to bolt the party he gave all his loyal trust on. In fact, he was the first to signify his intention to run for president and this one of Gibo is uncharacteristically too belated. After all, BF says he is “desidido, pursigid, diretso, tatakbo”. Just like FVR, perhaps, history is lamp post for BF to run under the best and last available option he deems best.
It cannot be taken for granted that someone worked behind the scene to let this scenario unfold. And the man we publicly know as the kingmaker is this time’s next to the king himself. If that bears fruit, let come what will. BF may well have to leave it to the electorate to decide.
Popularity: 1% [?]
would have supported teodoro but because he turned a blind eye to pgma’s corruption he lost my support. being quiet makes him complicite….
Primer,
I dunno . . . I know you are disappointed. I myself don’t fully understand how the back-room machinations of Philippine party politics works; it is very different than the American primary system, where the people pick the party’s representative.
I do think Teodoro has international standing, and is a smart man. He is not a bad candidate. I further think the line-up of major candidates — Villar, Aquino, Teodoro — is substantive, and represents Philippine democracy well. However the process works, it has shaken out three good candidates. The next few months will be rather fascinating.
Joe
Joe not a single candidate for President in this country will start with the correct predicate the destructive and moribund system and structure of economics that has created them in the first place.
There continues to this day a myth about Philippine triumphalism about the past that somehow must be regained.
That should be totally debunked.
Please note the ffg……..
“We were once the second most dynamic economy in Asia! That statement is delusive nostalgia, Filipino columnist Danilo Mariano writes. The economy (before the 1970s) remained healthy, but only for so long as the prices of sugar and copra (the countrys main exports) could sustain the ostentatious lifestyles of a few hundred families, with scraps left over for the rest of the population, Mariano notes.”
“There is plenty of evidence to back up that view. An April 1993 internal paper by a senior World Bank economist “ tellingly titled The Philippines: An East Asian Debacle “ points out: The evidence shows an economy which has been stagnant for a long period of time (even before the late 1970s and early 1980s), rather than a fast-growing economy which ran into trouble in the turbulent 1980s.”
“One piece of evidence the paper cited was recent economic studies showing that high growth rates reported in the 1950s and 1960s were illusory because they were mostly due to exploitation of resources such as forests, fisheries, and upland agriculture. The price for such unthinking use of non-renewable resources is the enormous environmental problems the country faces today. “Populations of a million or more coastal fishermen have depleted the near-shore fisheries, the paper noted. As many as 118 million upland farmers have cleared residual forests, enough to make soil erosion a major environmental problem.”
“The bank study pointed out that the countrys sharply divided economy “ an impoverished rural sector and a tiny, relatively well-off urban sector “has changed little, in contrast to Asias NICS. Worse, it noted what little change there was in terms of rural-urban population has only worsened conditions in the agricultural sector.”
“Rather than the classic shift from rural jobs to high-value-added industrial work, the report stated people have moved from low-productivity jobs in agriculture to low productivity jobs in the informal services sector. The sari-sari store, small convenience stores ubiquitous in the countryside and towns, and domestic household help have become the main refuge for surplus agricultural sector.” FEER
J_ag,
Too bad none of them subscribe to FV. They might become enlightened.
Joe
One telling feature of the more advanced economies in the 19th and 20th centuries is the role that states played in in their societal development.
Unfortunately for the Philippines the idea of autonomous economic/political statehood has numerous times resulted in a still born birth.
Maybe we are not destined to ever become a truly independent state. It will probably take a major catharsis. We were after all simply an aberration in Asia not attached to the mainland where civilizations have prospered for millennia.
We remains truly a product of history still unable to effect change and still rely on historical forces to effect change for ourselves.
Joe Am,
BF’s getting nominated is ‘politically anticlimactic’. It is almost to be expected using ordinary lenses.
What adds insult to injury is the manner the merged Lakas-Kampi proceeded with the nomination and Bayani’s desire that the standard bearer be chosen by all the members in a convention just fell on deaf ears.
Sometimes, haste makes waste and quite technically, this is awesome waste or an exercise in futility. What transpired is flawed.
This is a common-held mistake. Members of the House of Representatives think that because they are the representatives of their own constituents or legislative districts, then therefore, however they vote upon bills or resolutions in Congress, the same reflects the voice of their people. Which is not so.
In this case, it cannot be said that the vote of the members of the party’s national executive committee is the vote of all the members thereof. It can change.
Bayani Fernando is a Sore Loser. He sulks like a child. When Gilbert
Teodoro won the selection by secret ballot votes. Why can the man
accept defeat? His partymates have already spoken. They prefer Mr. Teodoro to be their candidate. Face the Truth Mr. Fernando! Accept
defeat gracefully.
Let me react.
First, the equivocation is graphically misplaced, grossly illogical even – it appearing, being nominated is the first and last option anybody who dreams to lead this country to greatness can have.
There sure are other ways. One can bolt the party and history is replete with cases of candidates having to bolt a party to chase his personal dream.
It is only fair that if BF really decides to run, no moral or legal obstacle whatsoever can be thrown on his path.
Secondly, the selection process is utterly flawed and in its infirmity, one can say, it dismally failed to follow the truly democratic tradition.
Lastly, call to mind that when the members of the House of Representatives voted upon the Con Ass, it was done by viva voce precisely because, it was impossible to capture it in record. Thus, it turned out to be a ‘voice vote’ and further it really was just an acoustic war between the opposition and the administration.
In this case therefore, it was to be by secret balloting precisely because it smacks of ‘unfair play’ – no one wants to be publicly identified if he or she were for Gibo than Teodoro and vice versa.
Please look through the matter with sense of objectivity than vicious partisanship.
Bottomline, this results in a scenario that again, smacks of ‘political dynasty’ that every well-meaning Constitution can only aim to eradicate. Sadly, it is here to stay.
Gibo has lesser chances of winning than BF – and that remains an indubitable fact.
The unseen hand that pulls the puppet strings. Very well put. So now we have Cojuangco vs Cojuanco. I still think BF, should just run and drag along the indies, like Gordon. What are they doing reviving Dynasty?
Thanks Alex.
As we all know, BF
is an engineer.
As such, it reminds us of what Herbert hoover, president of the United States once said:
“The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned.”
In the case of BF, he does only what works with that kind of sense of responsibility.