Contenders Part II

Here’s a simple question: Why does everyone want to be VP?

There is no actual power in the position, and going by historical experience, becoming VP in this country means that you are at the mercy of the President.

If the President gives you an official function, well and good. If the President treats you like shit, and this is mostly what happens in our experience, then there is nothing you can do to change that predicament – unless the President chokes to death all of a sudden or you conspire to bring him down.

Doy Laurel, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were practically treated the same way by their Presidents. Laurel had it worst. At least Estrada and GMA were able to vindicate themselves by claiming the Presidency when their time came but Laurel was practically betrayed, rendered worthless and left to rot in ignominy by Cory Aquino. And Laurel sacrificed his own political ambition to give way to Cory, so that the opposition would stay intact (UNIDO, 1986). He died nursing the pain and slipped uncomfortably into oblivion.

Estrada was sidelined by Tabako, was given a brief stint as Anti-Crime Czar, but was largely treated as an outsider during much of Tabako’s term. Estrada redeemed himself by claiming a landslide victory in 1998 which vanquished Tabako’s Lakas-NUCD. Then GMA won as Erap’s VP. Same thing happened. GMA was initially tapped as Social Welfare Secretary, until she was forced to resign from her post due to disagreements with Erap. Then GMA conspired with Tabako to oust Erap and went on to become President for ten years (the remainder of Erap’s term plus a full six year term).

Then history kept repeating itself. Abnoy won in 2010 but his VP lost to Jejomar Binay. Binay was playing his cards right. His trajectory was all perfect until he admitted to everyone that he wanted to become President and that is when his enemies started to demolish him. Binay was actually friendly and cooperative to Abnoy. He was close to the late President Corazon Aquino and owed his political ascendancy to the yellows. But he had a weak spot – he was notoriously corrupt, and that spelled the demise of his otherwise stellar political career.

Then the worst shit happened. Rodrigo Duterte won overwhelmingly in 2016 yet the yellows managed to sneak in Leni Robredo as Vice-President as the entire country slumbered and stole the popular mandate from Bongbong Marcos. The Liberals managed to screw everything up that nothing was left in the yellow tool box except her – and she wasn’t even the sharpest tool in the whole darn shed.

With the exception of Arroyo, all of the previous Vice-Presidents we’ve mentioned at least had the delicadeza of waiting it out despite their disagreements with the sitting President. None of them cared to destabilize the incumbent dispensation. But Leni and the yellows are cut from a different mold. Leni was put there deliberately for a purpose – to bring down Rodrigo Duterte and to deliver power back to the LP.

That is Leni Robredo’s mission. As for the rest who ran and jostled for VP in 2016, there was no other motive but political ambition. No matter how worthless Vice-Presidents are, if you know how to play your cards right, it just might propel you to the Presidency when your time comes.

So there you have it. Two reasons why anybody would possibly want to spend hundreds of millions and possibly billions just to occupy this worthless post: GREED and/or LUST FOR POWER and AMBITION.

And now that the dust has partially settled in 2016, despite a controversial protest case that could potentially uproot Leni Robredo from her precarious claim to the Vice-Presidency, the three major contenders who slugged it out for VP in 2016 are once again casting their eyes on the same target come 2022 – in what appears to be shaping up as the ultimate grudge match.

Let’s do a quick rundown of the major contenders:

I. BONGBONG MARCOS

Of all the three main contenders, Bongbong Marcos has the best claim and logistically the best chance of making it to the top post on 2022. Say what you want about the dude (that he’s got baggage being the late dictator’s son) but no one can deny that he’s got class. He’s the perfect gentleman. He doesn’t curse at his opponents, he doesn’t go ape shit in public, and handles himself quite well. He was practically cheated by the yellows yet you never see him foaming in the mouth over what happened or throwing invectives at the person who has caused him heartbreak, financial loss and a bit of emotional misery. He may be a bit lacking when it comes to mass appeal (unlike Rodrigo Duterte who’s a loveable rogue) but he has no pretensions when he presents himself to the people. He doesn’t walk around in slippers and doesn’t carry dirty stinking toddlers in his arms for the benefit of a photo opportunity. He has gravitas. And discipline. And finesse. Things he may have learned from his late father. We wouldn’t go as far as saying he’s brilliant – after all he has yet to prove his worth and redeem his family name after decades of being demonized by the Aquinos – but Bongbong seems to have the discipline and the demeanor to surprise even his most rabid critics.

Given the chance, we think he shows a lot of promise. Having said that, allow us to clarify that we are not Marcos loyalists or apologists. We are not saying that the late Ferdinand Marcos was the perfect leader (he had his character flaws and it cost him the Presidency) but we also believe that he does not deserve to be treated as the complete villain the yellows painted him to be. What’s appalling about the smear campaign undertaken by the yellows is the sheer hypocrisy as they went about demonizing Marcos while they edified themselves to a saintly status – even revising history by integrating all these lies in elementary text books and perpetuating the illusion that people should be eternally thankful for what happened in EDSA in 1986.

Bongbong should stop worrying about the past and should set his sights on the future. Instead of tampering with history and revising it again to suit their own narrative, his family should just let things be and focus on what they can do to reclaim their lost glory.

He is after all, his father’s son. He cannot be blamed for the sins of his father. But he can set things right by showing everyone that he could be someone his late father could have become, had things panned out differently. After all the lessons they learned having gone to the heights of power and down to the lowest trenches, the Marcoses should calibrate their focus on one thing from now on: seeking redemption by setting things right.

No amount of historical revisionism is necessary. Rodrigo Duterte’s election and the people’s collective disdain for the yellows are enough vindication. As for Bongbong, people will learn to respect him more if he just leaves history as it is. To say that his dad isn’t perfect, that the late strongman had great plans for the country and he may have had his share of failures and miscalculations, but under the circumstances he did the best he could. He may have erred and for that one can only express regret. But he is his father’s son. He is not his father. And that he’d be willing to prove his own worth if history will just give him the chance.

Filipinos are a forgiving lot. People despise hypocrisy and duplicity more than anything else. If Bongbong stays the course and invests himself in truly reaching out to the people and listening to what ails them, if he can just offer remedies and solutions to what plagues the country instead of contributing to the disease, a Marcos revival is not far from the horizon.

Bongbong has to be authentic. And true to his calling. With the advent of social media, people are wise enough now to see through the veils and the smokescreens. Perception engineering strategies might do the trick for a while, but there is no guarantee that the truth will not be exposed in due time.

Team Collective did not vote unanimously for Bongbong Marcos in 2016. But we believe it was he who won the mandate. And Leni Robredo stole it not from Bongbong but from the people who gave him their trust. And for that, we are willing to gamble everything we are fighting for on Bongbong Marcos. This does not mean that we will follow him blindly. We will criticize him and will not hold back reminding him of the lessons of history if the need arises. But so far we are willing to put our trust in him. As many of our countrymen already did in 2016, had it not been taken from him and whisked away by that bitch Leni Robredo like a thief in the night.

II. LENI ROBREDO

Well it is no longer a mystery where we stand when it comes to Leni Robredo. No other social media page has exposed so much about the lies and hypocrisy of the Robredos than Collective. Leni does not have what it takes to be President and mother of an entire country that suffered from decades of frustration and heartache. Especially given that such pain and frustration is caused mostly by her own ilk – the yellows.

She is shallow, vain, pretentious, and just plain stupid. If the aforementioned traits are your standards for electing the leader of the Republic than go ahead and vote for her. Not only that, she is likewise duplicitous and manipulative. She lacks the moral compass and is completely insensitive to the needs of her people. All she cares about is looking glamorous in photos and magazine covers.

But as we said in the previous article, Leni Robredo is being used as an instrument by powerful forces to keep the Marcoses at bay. She was planted there for a reason. And it is apparent that the yellows can do nothing to keep people from voting for Bongbong Marcos so they resorted to cheating in order to install Leni Robredo in his place. The constitutionally mandated successor if the President expires or resigns.

Pretty convenient huh? If you can’t murder the president, destabilize the shit out of his government until the people rise up against him. And when that happens, Leni will be waiting in some corner ready to take his place and usher us back to the same putrid quicksand we tried so desperately hard to crawl out of.

If the presidential elections are to be held now, Leni doesn’t stand a chance against Bongbong Marcos. But she has five more years to summon miracles from her late husband, or resort to parlor tricks or voodoo and black magic. And with the amount of money she has – billions of ill-gotten cash from their illicit activities when her husband was alive and billions more from the Liberals – nothing is impossible.

So Leni must not be taken lightly any time of the day.

III. ALAN PETER CAYETANO

Alan Cayetano’s greatest asset is his mouth. He loves talking. The guy’s so glib he can practically sell ice to an eskimo in monthly installments with interest. Apart from talking, we’re actually struggling to see what tangible contribution he has made to Philippine society in his long years serving as Congressman and Senator. Some of us here at Team Collective actually did vote for him back in 2016. Not so much for his articulateness but only because he happened to run alongside Rodrigo Duterte. Some of us were inclined to believe that a vote for Duterte should equate to a vote for his running mate as well. So even if there was a unanimous preference for Bongbong Marcos amongst ourselves at that time, we ultimately decided to let some of our colleagues pick Cayetano just to test that argument. And because of that decision, some of us learned a hard lesson in politics – always follow your initial gut feel and instinct.

Cayetano had no chance of winning. He only managed to split the votes and gave a premise for the yellows to cheat so that Leni gets to be proclaimed as VP. If Cayetano had not run, Bongbong would have solidified the vote and won overwhelmingly making it impossible if not too difficult for the yellows to even consider cheating - as what happened in the case of Duterte. Yes he hated Marcos. And he was too ambitious for his own good. He actually would have wanted to run for President and only decided later on to run for VP after realizing his chances were slim. And because he hated Marcos and was too ambitious for his own good, he only succeeded in splitting the votes and ushered the way for Leni to sneak in and eat the cake while everyone slept in the night. The more players in the game, the more fragmented the votes.

The same thing happened in 2004 when Ping Lacson decided to run for President. Lacson was against GMA, but he only managed to let GMA win by splitting the opposition votes in her favor. Had he not run, FPJ would have cornered the solid opposition vote and it would have been difficult for GMA to end up victorious.

In many respects Alan Cayetano is not that much different from Chiz Escudero. They are both gifted speakers. And they both mostly talk bull crap. The only small difference is the manner by which they serve it to their audience. When Chiz opens his mouth to talk, he gives you the impression that he memorized the statements verbatim straight out of a fucking book. Alan Cayetano sounded different. Whereas Chiz sounded contrived, Alan is more natural. Words flow out of his mouth like a generous fountain, and he has this uncanny ability to make even the most preposterous and mundane sound like they were taken from the Book of Ancient Wisdom.

While Chiz’s statements were an exercise in oracular speech, and are giving people the impression that he’s saying a mouthful when in fact he’s saying none, and his statements can best be described as an “army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea,” Alan’s words sounded like gospel truth. And he used this rare talent to his advantage. He played his cards right and despite losing the VP post as one would expect, he earned his stripes by continuously defending President Duterte against his enemies and detractors. Whenever somebody slights PRRD, Alan Cayetano will surely not waste time defending him. And because he is “loyal,” President Duterte gave him is rightful due by appointing him foreign affairs secretary – a position befitting his talent and stature. Where talking the way he does in diplomatic circles and making bull crap sound like gold is something the government can most certainly take advantage of.

But is Alan Cayetano doing this out of genuine belief for the President’s advocacies or is he simply riding the wave because of Duterte’s popularity and because it is politically convenient for him to latch his political fortunes on Rody?

Guess we’ll see that if Duterte makes the later decision to anoint someone like Bongbong Marcos instead of him.

In spite of everything he does for the President and we have to thank him for that, Alan Cayetano does not show much promise beyond being a senator. He has to learn how to temper his personal ambition and invest himself more on being like Rody Duterte instead of defending Rody Duterte.

Duterte doesn’t need someone like Alan Cayetano lawyering for him. The old man simply doesn’t give a rat’s fuck whether people hate him for some of the decisions he makes. He does things because they are necessary. And the results of his actions speak more about his decisions than any flowery words could possibly accomplish.

MAKING THE GAMBLE

There you have it folks, the three main contenders for the iron throne. We admit it’s a bit too early to say if these three are the only ones vying for the Presidency but at least we have ourselves a preview of what’s to come. The mid-term elections in 2019 will give us a better picture of what dynamics to expect in 2022.

Everything’s fluid and there are simply no guarantees in this game. But this early, WAC is making its preference known.

It’s BBM. Or back to the stinking shit pile.