Politicians here are a smart breed. They can rationalize anything under the sun.
Look at the people running for the two highest offices of the land in the national elections on May 2016.
Under normal circumstances the pairings would be seen as either ludicrous, impossible or plain silly. Under normal circumstances, the players themselves wouldn’t team up with whom they’ve ended teaming up.
Especially the Binay-Honasan, Miriam-Bongbong, and Duterte-Cayetano pairings for president and vice president.
Jojo Binay was a Cory Aquino stalwart before and after the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship. He was one of the many activists who fought the tyranny of Ferdinand Marcos. President Cory Aquino appointed him officer-in-charge of Makati City in 1986 (with him and his family staying in power there up to this day).
Army colonel Gringo Honasan, on the other hand, was an inveterate coup plotter and was a thorn in the side of Cory Aquino. Today Honasan rationalizes his coup d’etat escapades as fighting for the people.
Sen. Miriam Santiago, too, was an activist during the martial law years. And yet for some reason she has chosen Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as her vice presidential running mate. For any rational person, that choice would be a major brain challenge. A foe of martial law and the son of a dictator. Crazy.
Rodrigo Duterte, controversial mayor of Davao City, has chosen, almost by default, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano as his vice presidential teammate. Inexplicably Duterte labels himself a leftist but he’s really a fascist. Anybody who says he has killed people and threatens to kill more people, and who’s alleged to have a hit squad at his command, is a fascist.
And yet Cayetano, who fought the imperious and fascistic President Gloria Arroyo, has pursued Duterte for them to run as a tandem. Under normal circumstances, I would bet that Cayetano wouldn’t allow himself to even be associated with Duterte. And yet, he was the one who avidly ran after Duterte. And so Duterte exasperatedly accepted Cayetano because he was “palaging nandyan, buntot ng buntot.”
And so today Cayetano goes around as Duterte’s apologist for the rough man’s cursing and generally crass language. How could Cayetano allow himself to be a water-carrier for a gruff, unpolished person?
Sen. Koko Pimentel, an otherwise commendable politician, has also been apologizing for Duterte, proudly announcing there’ll be a “new,” sanitized Duterte. People can change their stances on issues and principles with ease depending on their interests.
Regarding Sens. Grace Poe and Francis Escudero, one would think that the pairing would be the other way around. Escudero is the senior senator of the two and indeed is said to be Poe’s mentor in the Senate. Poe, on the other hand, is an ambitious neophyte who hardly has any track record in governance.
But Escudero is a pragmatic person. He knows Poe is the darling of the people at the moment, the flavor of the times. So why not bide his time, run as Poe’s VP running mate, and wait until 2022 for his own run for the presidency.
And Roxas-Robredo? President Aquino pursued Poe offering the VP slot under a Mar Roxas campaign. Poe, who had other plans, spurned a sitting president and said “No.”
Good thing she did because, as it turned out, Roxas ended up pairing with a clean, simple and seemingly honest teammate in Rep. Leni Robredo a his Veep teammate. Their winning chances are up in the air at the moment although Mr. Aquino thinks that once the people get to know both Roxas and Robredo, they will vote for them.
A Roxas-Poe tandem? That would have been disastrous for Roxas and the Liberal Party. Poe is too ambitious.
The lesson to learn from the coming election’s pairings is that politicians can justify everything under the sun to explain the inconsistent things they say and do.
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Christmas greetings from Manila to the esteemed readers of Balita, the staff of the newspaper, and especially the paper’s moving force, publisher and editor-in-chief Tess Cusipag, and her family. Mabuhay and Happy Christmas to all!