Mar Roxas should just retire

There’s this famous slogan being trumpeted by (mostly) people in the self improvement/sports industry: WINNERS DON’T QUIT.

That’s all nice and fun and full of ‘positivity’ that you’d come to expect from people with no concept of time. Those phoney upbeat types with a million dollar smile perpetually plastered all over their faces who insist on greeting you ‘good morning’ at 11:45 PM. A lot of people find them cute, with the immaculate air of a well-loved pastor. A smaller segment of society would probably think: Serial killer.

As if pausing and re-assessing your current situation and deciding to stop is an alien undertaking. But these con artists are good at what they do. They go in there with guns blazing and full of anecdotes about their own spectacular life and how perseverance and (insert product/ideology here) helped them out in the darkest hours of their lives.

Or so they say. For all you know the ‘darkest’ moments these charlatans ever experienced was coming up short on the payment for that lapdance they requested from ‘Tawny’.

While quitting is indeed an unsavory option, it does not necessarily mean it is wrong all the time. There are instances when quitting can be good—if not the best option available—to a person with a specific predicament unique to him.

Like Mar Roxas, for example.

For some reason, that ‘winners don’t quit’ battle cry only paints him as a stubborn boy still plodding along throwing empty punches at the guy who already beat the crap out of him. Everything he does in a seemingly uphill battle comes across as pathetically stubborn.

Everytime he does something remotely related to his campaign, it’s always a cringe-worthy stunt. The lengths he goes through to embarrass himself transcends mere audience heckling and amusement. It has entered the stage where you feel bad for someone who’s too clueless to realize what a big laughingstock he has become. Where even the slightest provocation level-headed men ignore ignites a temper tantrum that only makes him do something even more damaging to his campaign.

And it’s not even because of the off-key attempts at connecting to his target audience. Or the stilted efforts to speaking the language of the people he likely regards with condescending contempt. It’s because the gaffes he records in front of the camera simply reflects his ineptitude at several key posts in the government long before his embarrassing campaign strategy was well under way.

Even the yellow propaganda machine and its legions of attack dogs and apologists can’t even contain the innate self-destructive streak of their candidate without looking like total jackasses themselves. That he’s endorsed by another arrogant incompetent like BS Aquino doesn’t help his cause. For someone who is known to have played it safe by observing people’s sentiments about his choices of friends and changing allegiances at the last minute just to save his skin, his stubborn refusal to emancipate himself from his boss is so totally out of character.

Or maybe not. Perhaps Aquino et. al. are the only people left who’ll readily accept him. If the difficulty of finding a suitable vice presidential running mate for him was any indication, people with a political death wish would readily attach their name next to his.

Simply basing one’s observation in recent survey reports (credible or otherwise), his name has yet to come out on top or even just a consistent second-placer. He said:

“Tulad ng parati kong sinasabi, ang pinakaimportante ay ang survey sa Mayo, sa botohan mismo.”

Fair enough. Whether he gets elected into that position or not does not necessarily mean he should hog all the credit for it. It’s the voters, as always, who’ll ultimately decide. And if the last six years had been great for you and still want more of the same, knock yourself out.

Even masochists have a right to vote.

rsurtida

Worker in a private sector hive.