Dear GRP Insiders,
Back to work for most of us. As what the New Year clichés assert, it's 2020 all over again. This time we lack the benefit of blissful ignorance and enter the year pretty much knowing how a resurgence of COVID on the back of a new Greek letter variant will play out.
For those who don't need to be on-location to do their work, the technologies are vastly-improved over what we had at the dawn of 2020. These are also getting better and their vendors are armed with strategies to harvest the enormous opportunities a global pandemic that will keep millions of schmoes locked up in their rooms and experiencing the world through their screens offers to the fortunate elite who find themselves on the right side of this era’s business equation.
We live in interesting times indeed!
Regards,
benign0
In review and in prospect
The circus that was the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) review last Friday of the disqualification petitions several groups filed against administration presidential candidate Bongbong Marcos was the highlight of the week. The drama revolved around social media noise instigated by no less than Commissioner Rowena Guanzon who is the presiding officer of these proceedings who made a big deal about Marcos not personally attending the review. This, in turn, was amplified by COMELEC spokesman James Jimenez who, over several tweets, led the public to believe that the proceedings would not be able to start unless Marcos showed up.
According to a Manila Bulletin report, however, Jimenez had stated three days earlier that Marcos and the petitioners “are not required to attend. This is usually attended by counsel only”. Nonetheless, after delays due to the unnecessary calls for Marcos's presence, the proceedings went through and all information pertinent to the case was presented and reviewed. Evidently, Marcos’s absence had no impact on the required outcome of Friday’s proceedings.
Marcos clearly made the right decision not to attend the review. This was evidently a trap set by Guanzon to put Marcos on the hot seat and turn this event into a media lynching. The trouble with Marcos is he should have just straight out declined attendance of the COMELEC review, perhaps asserting that his presence is unnecessary and, citing Jimenez's earlier statement, not required. Instead, however, he and his handlers had to go on and use the “not feeling well” excuse to explain his absence. Worse, his lawyer Hanna Barcena, when asked why Marcos would be unable to attend even via Zoom videoconference, said that they feared “he might cause the spread of the virus”. Not surprisingly, social media chatter within the echo chambers of Opposition partisans over the weekend centred around drumming up the nonsensical notion of fearing transmission of a virus over videoconference.
This little incident probably does not resonate past the domain of the idly-chattering classes and is unlikely to significantly impact any of the candidates’ campaign trajectories. Still, this could have been handled better on the part of both (1) the COMELEC which, as governing body, should have been the source of clarity and circumspection and (2) Team BBM which should have been better-prepared and coordinated in their approach to managing Marcos’s participation in this exercise.
Either way, all eyes will eventually be back on the Robredo campaign as the onus remains on her lot to up their game and elevate the competitiveness of their pitch to Filipino voters. Key “thought leaders” of the Opposition including former Inquirer editor (now Rappler columnist) John Nery and former Communications Undersecretary Manuel L Quezon III (now a columnist for the Inquirer) have each issued grim prognoses on Robredo’s prospects over the final stretch to the May elections this year in light of the mutually-consistent outcomes of surveys conducted by several reputable polling firms. Nery proposes that one look beyond the elections and see the Robredo campaign more as a “movement”. Quezon, for his part, could only propose that the Opposition camps find ways to work together to “whittle away” Marcos's formidable popularity numbers. Clearly both Yellowtard stalwarts see nothing in the Robredo campaign beyond what it really only is — a campaign to prevent a Second Marcos Presidency and not much else.
Perceptions that Robredo and her camp are elitists seem to persist and reflection on this inescapable reality remain overdue. Filipino voters should be given enough credit for their choice (the whole point of democracy if we recall) and not be regarded as fools just because their choice is not the “right” one. This, perhaps, is the single biggest cause of the failure of the Robredo campaign as hers is a camp of partisans stained by a long tradition of denigrating people for challenging or expressing disagreement to their views of the world.
Democracy makes no judgement of the people's choice. It is only interested in how many are making said choice.
Last week's blog posts
Politics
Leni Robredo digs her own political grave every time she opens her mouth
January 8, 2022 by Ilda
"One wonders what happened to those who supposedly voted for Robredo in the 2016 elections. If she really won as Vice President just like they say she did, where are those voters who made her win? It seems they are nowhere to be found!"
January 7, 2022 by benign0
"Thanks to the unbecoming actions of Rowena Guanzon and James Jimenez, the COMELEC has become the source of a lot of social media chatter surrounding what is essentially a non-issue."
On the Yellowtards’ BORING habit of blaming “trolls” for all their troubles
January 7, 2022 by benign0
"How, after all, can you convince a Marcos supporter to change her mind if you are perceived to be some pompous pale-skinned limpwrist looking down on them from that proverbial Hill in Katipunan...?"