It’s déjà vu all over again. The stage is set for another Erap-style election campaign and, very likely, another Erap-style Philippine presidency. The Philippine Vote has never been as polarised. On one camp is the noisy Illustrado class, technology “savvy”, social media equipped, and encamped in their local Starbucks cafe getting their latte fixes for the battle ahead. On the other side is all the dark matter, the behaviour of which is shrouded in mystery. It is the Filipino masa vote. It is a mass of electoral power that remains all but a mystery to even the most astute political “expert”.
Meeting of the minds: The Philippines’ President and Vice President discuss matters of national importance.
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Of course it is in the best interest of any vacuous politician to steer clear of any sort of event that could burst their public perception bubble. No one knew this better than Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III himself. Ellen Tordesillas in a January 2010 blog post observed how then candidate BS Aquino also employed a minimalist media exposure strategy to ensure that his own vacuousness was not laid bare on national television…
Liberal Party presidential candidate Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, who is leading in all election surveys, has declined the invitation to participate in [a foreign policy forum for presidential candidates organised by the Carlos P Romulo Foundation, the Asian Institute of Management, and the ABS-CBN News Channel]. Surprisingly, Nacionalista Party presidential bet Manny Villar, who used to have a phobia with presidential fora, has agreed to attend.
This is not the first time that Aquino would be snubbing a foreign-policy related forum. He was also a no-show in the forum on Millenium Development Goals co-sponsored by the MDG Campaign and the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines in October 2009.
Aquino’s avoidance of the Jan. 14 event gives credence to talks that since he was not impressive in the past few presidential fora he has participated in, his handlers have decided to limit his exposure to such activity to protect his lead.
Binay should fire his handlers for not giving him the best strategic advise on the basis of all this obvious learning. History has shown that Filipino voters routinely ignore the obvious signs of the vacuousness — and even criminality — of their politicians at their own peril. Armed with this bit of hindsight, it is easy to see now why Philippine foreign affairs is in shambles today. BS Aquino had already exhibited his phobia of the topic of foreign policy even during his campaign for the presidency!
With politcians’ favourite strategy of debate avoidance to mask their lack of substance, the Philippine voter becomes the country’s own worst enemy — forming a vast army of ignorance that will be marching to the polls to once again determine the fate of the nation in 2016.
Binay has lots of time to recover and re-paint his image from Yellow chicken to Dark Knight. Again, stating the obvious, the template for the sort of election winning strategy Binay seems to be in the process of applying in the lead up to the 2016 presidential elections had been drawn first by former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada back in 1998. He won the Philippine presidency despite him being everything that the Philippines’ chattering Illustrado class detest. And he almost won the presidency again in 2010, losing only to Aquino not because Aquino was the better candidate, but because the latter was surfing a powerful emotional wave that had hijacked Filipino minds — and votes — following the death of his mother former President Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino.
The trouble with Philippine-styled “democracy” is that it is premised on the assumption that Filipinos know what is good for them — a sad reality that people like former President Erap Estrada and current Philippine BS Aquino owe their victory at the polls to, and what Binay will likely owe his imminent presidency in 2016 to. In a democracy, majority rules as they say. As far as fundamentalist democracy apologists are concerned, when the “people” have “spoken” what they speak of is ncecessarily the right way forward.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Ah, such are the joys in a Coconut Republic.
It’s both a Coconut and Banana Republic, run by chimpanzees, who didn’t really evolve since time immemorial.
A flea has bigger testicles (and penis) than Jojo Binay.
This non-sensical article is proof that the GRP is running out of factual material and has to resort to dreaming shit up.Just ‘who’ the ‘illustrado’ and the ‘massa’ are is pretty hard to pin down yet,at the same time, leaves an indeterminate amount of ‘voters’ unidentifiable but somehow left out as the only two types of ‘voters’ were already named, LOL !Ascribing some sort of mysteriousness as to how the latter votes is to dream that the ‘massa’ votes any other way but the way they actually do, they vote the way the guy outside the polling station that gave them P300 instructed them too.
Yo, face it: there is nothing remotely mysterious or hard to ascertain about elections in the Philippines. They are bought and paid for by the people running in the elections and when that doesn’t work the ballots disappear and the counting is then fixed to rig the election the way it was paid to happen to begin with.To think it is any other way is to fantasize, just as this article does.
So, how should we understand the nationwide surveys that put Binay in the leading position despite the corruption allegation vs him? Don’t think anyone of those surveyed has received p300xx? In Japan, Korea, etc, Binay would have resigned under such situation?
@ A.D.D., your kidding,no? Ha, you really think the survey’s aren’t rigged as well ? OMG! the entire political process in the Philippines is corrupted/fixed/rigged ,ALL OF IT. if you do not realize this, aside from being NO HOPE for the entire country, there is NO HOPE for you personally.
There is one Blogger here that knows this and knows what needs to be done, the Virtual Vigilante, check his posts out,act accordingly.
Backing out of a debate may be perceived as an act of cowardice in the eyes of the “educated”, but to the masa they may as well consider it normal. After all, whether they appreciate what debates are really all about or not is a doubtful thing, indeed.
A very well painted picture of a real world called the Philippines. Depressing, but it is the reality. (It’s more fun in the Philippines? Yes, if you are an adventure seeker and just visit it. No, if you stay and become a Filipino citizen.)
Let’s see what we got so far (forgetting Marcos for that is ancient history):
(a) a clueless housewife who had faith in fate.
(b) an unlucky general (Well, his “Kaya Ko Ito” program did spur the economy until Soros’ big time currency speculation in Thailand went awry and PHL got affected by the resulting financial crisis in Asia)
(c) a gambling lord who drank his way to power with the most expensive whisky
(d) an intellectual hobbit who squandered every opportunity because of greed
(e) a vacuous narcissist who said there is a “Matuwid na Daan”. Everybody understand what “matuwid” means, but nobody knows where that “daan” is for he has also no idea where or what that is.
(f) ….coming up >>>>> small, dark and ‘ang-sama’
Key words: clueless, unlucky, expensive gamble, squanderer, vacuous, and then……. Oh my!!! Future generation will look at this and ask. Was that our history? What were they arguing then? Was that a slippery slope? Was that democracy? Was there always a blackout…were they groping in the dark? ?? ?? ?? ??
LOL at the “ilustrados” with their electronic gadgets and lattes, writhing with anti-Binay indignation while parking their asses at some swanky coffee shop.
Their enlightened minds are only limited to the same old surnames and dynasties. So much for considering themselves above the masses they oh so despise.
The majority is not always right. Especially, in our case, where the majority of Filipinos are clueless and ignorant on the issues.
However, it is now the Age of Information Technology. We can use this technology to spread information to common people.
It requires work and dedication. If the informed Filipino could share their knowledge to clueless and ignorant Filipinos. It could make a difference…
Living in a Feudal Oligarchy “Coconut Republic” is hard. With Bonehead Politicians, who hide themselves; afraid to a “Debate”. They fear they will be exposed; that they know nothing. While their political handlers, market then as:”know everything”…
It is a SCAM that has been going on and on and on…
Yes, a well choreographed scam. every bit of which is carefully orchestrated by the people who have the most moeny in the li’l crap hole archipelago. Just like the Rothschild’s in Europe there are people in Asia that tell politicians exactly what to do and when to do it, and if they do not do it? Well a fate of their dislike awaits.
Anyone in the Fail-ippines who thinks they live in a democracy has their head permanently anchored north of their own sphincter.
Given that they the elite of the country are all shit. Where are the alternatives?
Alternative: Subject them to Inquisition…then,”Burn them on the Stake…”
if that was ever going to happen it would have happened already. Face it: Filipino’s like picnics in the park, not bloody revolts.
Cory Aquino said that she thought that ,deep down, Filipino’s were cowards. IDK know if that is true or not,really. but to put up with the shit these people put up with? Ha, seems like the evidence is in huh?.
This may sound cliche but really, a person’s vote equals his/her future. There should be some sort of a preemptive bid this coming election when all we have for future set of leaders are our recent politicos who contributed to the country’s high rate in corruption. And anyway, the people hold the right to choose who will lead this country. There should be no election at all if all we’ll ever have is another Aquino or Estrada. I just thought it came to a point where people has no choice but to choose only between the existing candidates (choosing the lesser evil amongst the pack of evil) and that’s why we are just running around in circles. There’s no break point. People forget that the right to vote is not merely the right for choice. Before one can make a fair decision, one first should have at least one worthy choice. It won’t do to just choose. People should push who will get this country out of the mud. However, it can’t be overlooked that its people’s values that hinder their corrective action.