June 12 may be just eight days Way but it may as well be six months from now. In just the last ten days since dominant Opposition coalition 1Sambayan announced its plan to announce its candidates on what some people believe to be the Philippines’ “Independence Day”, Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte has pretty much been crowned the administration presidential candidate for the 2022 national elections. And over those ten days, no less than three vice presidential candidates have emerged from the woodwork; former Senator Bongbong Marcos, former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, and Inday Sara’s father and current President Rodrigo Duterte.
What can happen over the next eight days? Very likely a lot more than what happened in that last ten. One thing’s for sure, however, 1Sambayan will continue to keep Filipinos waiting. They are caught between a rock and a hard place. Whether they back one candidate or another, they will not win against the administration camp. This is particularly considering that they have not changed a key pillar of their messaging, their anti-Duterte rhetoric — a drum they’ve been beating since 2016, through their catastrophic loss in the 2019 midterm elections, and now as they approach the runway to 2022. The mediocrity of the Philippine Opposition is captured in a tweet recently fielded by Opposition personality and convenor of the partisan group Kaya Natin, Harvey Keh…
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Evidently, the notion of an Opposition that should have had its act together and been working hard on strategic intent long ago to begin with routinely escapes Opposition “thought leaders” like Keh. Really, their lot should stop being merely reactive (specially to admin camp movements) and be a bit more proactive around a compelling and competing vision for the Philippines — if they can come up with one. If not, all they are really defining themselves and any candidate who runs under their banner as is an anti-[insert admin candidate here] force and not much else.
Thing is, even the lazy option to be merely reactive is not something 1Sambayan is in a position to enjoy given that it seems committed to remain tight-lipped until our so-called “Independence Day”. Meanwhile, the community of Opposition social media “influencers” and institutional “thought leaders”, lacking any guidance or unifying leadership, will continue to be the loose cannons that fire words and messages that do nothing to erase the yellow political shade that stains pretty much the entire Opposition camp and, worse, only further degrades the already failed brand of 1Sambayan.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
No one will surely want to lead losers…they want to be with the winners, always…
Why do you care so much about the opposition benign0? They have been occupying your head rent free for a long time. You have been toying them to win elections next year and yet you despise them for everything. What if they win next? Will you go back criticizing them again like every inch of their mistakes you will write a blog about it just like what you did to Noynoy Aquino? But you failed miserably to highlight the incompetence and mediocrity of Duterte admin.
Your loyalty is really to your politicians. You set the quality and standard for the opposition but when it comes to your favored politicians, you don’t want to apply them. Thus, you have zero credibility and that you have no right to tell anyone what to do. Nobody should believe you.
The job of the Opposition in the lead up to a national election is to replace the incumbent. Are they up to that job? Obviously not. That’s the point you are evidently missing (or deliberate sidestepping). It’s not Duterte’s fault that the Opposition in this election suck. The fault lies in the Opposition’s “leaders”. They should take accountability for why their camp suffers a dismal prospect in these coming elections.
Are you referring to surveys? You do realize surveys are not reliable and a big joke right? 1,500 random filipino people interviewed out of 50-60million adult filipino voters. That’s just pure bullshit and mind-conditioning. Election is still next year and you already concluded they suffer a dismal prospect. As if you are accurately sure of that. Duterte didn’t even declare his presidency not until the last minute which he replaced someone for him to run as a substitute candidate and yet he won.
So why do you care and discuss about the opposition so much in this website if you already knew they sucked and don’t stand a chance? Are you feeling threatened? Why don’t you just ignore them and make specific justification on why the incumbent admin deserves another shot in the presidency.
As far as im concerned, this admin made a lot of mistakes in the last five years that people should think twice of voting any candidate in line with this admin. You haven’t made it clear why we should not vote for the left wing opposition and why we should vote for the right wing politicians aside from your clear biases of course.
So if you and your lot in the Opposition believe that “this admin made a lot of mistakes in the last five years that people should think twice of voting any candidate in line with this admin”, by all means, show us an alternative both to the admin camp and the approach to leadership that they take. So far we see zero such proposition and all Filipinos get is this lame “coalition” known as 1Sambayan which has so far failed to capture the imagination of the Filipino public and, worse, seem to be regarded as a joke even by key blocs within the Opposition itself.
And that is why the Opposition sucks. I care about what sort of Opposition is going up against the incumbent because Filipinos deserve BETTER than the morons who currently lead the Opposition.
Why do you call the opposition lame? If they are lame then the current admin and all your favored politicians in the past are also lame. They didn’t make this country a first world one. You don’t have the right to bash someone on what they did when you don’t have some achievements that can make the Philippines trully proud of. All you have are some bullshit criticisms against the opposition without any substance and I just think you hate them without any basis at all. This looks something personal to you that’s why opposition occupies your head rent free.
Why you care so much of them and guessing on who they want to indorse for the next election seems to say you feel threatened. You don’t care about this country since you already criticized everything about the Filipinos in your other blogs in this website. You only care about your politicians that are not allies with the Aquino that you want to win no matter how dismal their performance was/is such as this current admin who exemplifies incompetenece and mediocrity in the last five years and yet you turned a blind eye in all of those blunders. This is personal to you. Get it straight. Nobody should believe in you. I mean nobody.
Onus is on the Opposition — and you — to prove they aren’t lame. After all, they are the ones making a pitch to the Filipino Voter. That perception of lameness will not go away unless they show and PROVE it is wrong.
I hope the opposition wins or someone else other than this admin because this admin didn’t prove anything different than what the opposition already did in the past. This admin even made it worst this year with rising unemployment rate, closing of businesses and lackluster performance in addressing pandemic and poverty issues and you still choose this admin? Where’s your quality? What standard do you have benign0 other than your double standard? You are the one who is lame and liar.
“Hope” does not win elections though. Neither is it a strategy.
Hope is a personal desire. You want strategy? The incompetence and cowardness of this admin in the last five years will prove destructive and will be exposed and are the main reasons the opposition or someone who is an independent candidate is winning in the next election. That’s the basis.