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The latest Pulse Asia Survey (in the City of Manila
only) appears to show that the Genuine Opposition (GO) senatorial
slate is far more popular than their Team Unity opponents. But
GO’s luckluster miting de avance in Plaza Miranda and its
cancellation of its rallies in Iloilo and Antique, showing that its
machinery is weak, have made people wonder if its vaunted popularity
will result in GO bagging a majority of the Senate seats.
Meanwhile Team Unity’s
launching rally in Cebu was an outstanding success, showing that it
has a well-oiled organizational machinery.
The pro-administration campaign
spokesmen have deftly played down GO’s phenomenal 9-to-3
superiority in the Pulse Asia survey of February 10-11 by pointing
out that it was only a survey of some respondents in the City of
Manila. They ask: How can the results of a privately commissioned
and paid survey of a small part of Metro Manila and of the entire
archipelago be made to represent the thinking and preferences of 40
million voters?
The effectiveness of having
well-oiled machinery has been demonstrated by the pro-Arroyo
coalition in Congress, particularly in the House, these past years.
Since the campaign season began,
Team Unity has also moved with Germanic precision.
Team Unity’s campaign is
running smoothly, a sign that it indeed has superior organization
machinery.
So, between machinery and
popularity, which will prevail in the May 2007 elections?
This is now a hot subject of
contentious discussion.
The Manila Times has discovered
that most expert political observers and actual
practitioners—candidates for senator, congressman and various
local offices—think it is neither machinery alone nor popularity
alone.
That it is neither political
machinery nor just popularity that accounts for election victory is
also the dominant stream of thinking among our political columnists
and Maribel Ong-pin, who is as distant from the political world as
she is close to cultural and environmental issues. (See their
articles also in this issue)
Dan Mariano, who has not been
able to submit an article for this special report, thinks “surveys
are not enough to win elections.” He has a full discussion of that
issue in his Big Deal column appearing tomorrow.
The wise money is betting on
candidates that possess both machinery and popularity.
Unless GO develops the machinery
in the coming days—and well before May—it is, according to
seasoned politicians and most of our columnists (whose views are as
varied as the spectrum), doomed.
--Rene Q. Bas
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