Sure, he can. But it depends.
President Benigno Aquino III has “anointed” his loyal party mate and Interior Secretary, Mar Roxas, as his chosen candidate for president in the 2016 elections here.
But Roxas is way down in the surveys. He’s trailing one declared candidate, Vice Presidenr Jojo Binay, and two undeclared ones: Sen. Grace Poe and Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City.
By any reckoning, that’s discouraging. As Roxas himself has said, it’s an “uphill battle.”
But he should be optimistic. There is hope.
In a two-way battle, between Roxas and Binay, or in a multi-candidate contest, Mar will have a chance. He has better chances if the election will just be between him and Binay.
That’s because Roxas and Poe would be trawling from the same pool of votes: the middle and upper classes (including the more discerning voters).
Binay has his own constituency: essentially the lower classes, those hoping for a Makati-esque Philippine Utopia that Binay is dangling before the desperate.
At this writing, Poe’s candidacy is still up in the air. She may or may not run. Despite her instant popularity (she’s the adopted daughter of the late movie star Fernando Poe Jr.), she and her advisers know how formidable the odds are for her because she has no political machinery to campaign for her in the grassroots and to bring out the votes on Election Day.
Meanwhile, Binay will count on the alliances he has built over the years: Makati’s sister cities and the families of members of the Boy Scouts. These were his secret weapons in 2010 when he won the vice presidency that the people didn’t know about. He will bring them out again in 2016.
(Mayor of Makati City for many years, Binay has forged sister-city ties with hundreds of city governments, a shrewd political tactic as it turned out).
Roxas will have the Liberal Party machinery to campaign for him and get the votes out. If the party sticks together and will go all out for Roxas, he will have a fighting chance. Their coalition partners, too, will be crucial for a Roxas win. They can counter Binay’s command vote from the sister cities and Scouts.
Here’s what will also be critical for Roxas: President Aquino’s campaigning for him. If Aquino pulls all the stops and goes all over the country until he’s campaign-fatigued, Roxas will have a realistic chance of becoming President in 2016.
Aquino has indicated he will go full throttle for Roxas and that’s the good news for Mar. People whose interests don’t coincide with Roxas’ belittle Aquino’s endorsing power. That’s their propaganda. But I think Aquino still has a constituency out there that he can rely on to vote for Roxas.
The key is for Aquino to go full blast for Roxas. He can’t just go through the motions, or be timid in pushing Roxas’ bid. He must physically go out on the campaign trail. And he must tape as many messages as needed to broadcast in every barangay, every town and city, and every province.
The Roxas campaign must saturate all possible audiences, bombard all media big and small, and get the message (including Mr. Aquino’s appeal) out to every voter in the archipelago.
The campaign will have to run scared, scared of Binay (and any other candidate), scared of the odds, and scared of losing. Everybody, including Aquino, will have to work double time, overtime, to get Roxas to the finish line ahead of Binay (and the others).
This, of course, is a simplistic outline of how Roxas can win. The actual campaign will be very complicated. There will be multiple variables during the campaign that Roxas will have to deal with. But it’s not an impossible task, or an impossible dream.
If everybody in the Liberal Party and the coalition partners toes the line strictly, Roxas can win. They can’t hold back. They can’t be tepid or timid. They have to go all out.
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