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By Rene V.
Saguisag
To FPJ fans,
he “lost” in 2004 not due to GMA’s machinery, which was there,
or her popularity, which wasn’t.
The true
architects were seen to be then Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and
former Comelec official Roque Bello.
GMA admitted
to “a lapse in judgment” in June 2005 for calling a Comelec
official who she would not name—to protect her votes, not the
integrity of the process. Garci hid for a while but is now running
for Congress.
Everybody and
his mother assumed he was the “callee.”
But, very
early on he said, “Who, me?” GMA, sandbagged, could not very
well contradict him.
We can talk
and talk until we are blue in the face whether machinery or
popularity is decisive but the phenomenon of getting
“Comelected” remains a sad brooding omnipresence in the skies.
Machinery certainly works if supported by the three Gs—goons, guns
and gold. The Comelec continues to have low credibility partly
because its chairman refuses to resign. Most of his peeved and
tendentious comments and actuations are perceived to be
proadministration. Very few in government however let go.
Is popularity
crucial? Machinery means money which I did not have when I ran for
the Senate in 1987. As a law school senior, I ran and won as a
barrio councilor, without spending a single centavo of my own. This
was exactly what happened in 1987, which convinced me of the basic
decency of the Filipino.
I am from
Quezon. My wife is from Pangasinan. I could then access with ease
the famed Lingayen-Lucena corridor. In Metro Manila, only Orly
Mercado beat me in 1987.
I won mainly
because ad gurus Nonoy Gallardo and Raul Contreras, pro bono, came
up with the winning “Amponin si Saguisag” line which many still
fondly remember. A number tell me they still have my posters and
Saguisag dolls.
It might have
helped that I had a soft madaling lapitan image, which I like to
think I have by and large maintained. One consequence is that my net
worth today remains de minimis, meaning, if I ran today, a machinery
is out of the question.
But, my 1987
run underscored how utang na loob matters in our culture and psyche.
During the Marcos years, I helped, pro bono, countless clients who
were poor, oppressed and obscure, from Isabela’s peasantry to
Kidapawan’s Fr. Favali. All over the land, when I was campaigning
in 1987, people would approach me and introduced themselves as
having been among those who benefited from our human rights
lawyering when we risked all.
The Filipino
can be grateful to a fault.
In May, what
is seen as the Arroyos-Abalos-Puno-Ebdane-Esperon-Calderon machinery
would be formidable in the provinces but would not be enough to
match the power of popularity the likes of Loren Legarda and Ping
Lacson have all over.
One thing
seems sure, the downward slide from the 1988 local polls will
continue. The unresolved Garci controversy makes it impossible to
hope for a fair and credible election in May.
Crime is seen
to pay, relegating machinery and popularity to the background, in a
society approaching near total ethical decay. All sides are guilty
of syndicated political estafa, for having candidates pretending to
have qualifications they don’t. They dare, because, as in 1978, a
Herblock cartoon showed how an irate Marcos would berate ingrates
who had been allowed to vote and had the gall to expect their votes
to be counted yet.
The irony is
that in 1980, Ben Abalos was himself a victim in Mandaluyong of a
Comelec that did not know how to count. In 1984, GMA made sure by
naming two lackeys to the body, including Garci. Today, she is
poised to name a Garci clone.
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