The results of this year’s elections should give President GMA a reason to pause and ponder upon her next moves. Her spokesmen can shout to the high heavens that the results were favorable to her, but the people can see otherwise.
Only two of her candidates so far made it to the winning senatorial slate, with one of them (Joker) known for being independent-minded. The people voted 9 candidates opposed to her including one of the presidential candidates in 2004 (Lacson), one VP candidate (Legarda-Leviste), two people she had put in jail (Honasan and Trillanes), a son of former President Cory Aquino (Noynoy), and two young men (Cayetano and Escudero) now famous for spearheading the two impeachment attempts with one of them (Cayetano) perceived as victim of a demolition campaign by GMA’s husband, Mr. Mike Arroyo. These people are known as steadfastly anti-GMA. Only Senate President Villar is seen as quite neutral. Senator Pangilinan is with the Liberal Party who asked for GMA’s resignation before.
The other GMA candidate who won was former Senate President Angara. But he used to be with the Opposition. He was President Estrada’s adviser and was the head honcho in Fernando Poe Jr.’s campaign in 2004. The only reason he was not in the opposition slate was presumably because Lacson would not want to be his running mate. There was a lot of bad blood between Lacson and Angara in 2004.
If Pimentel would win over Zubiri, GMA would not have any real ally among this batch of 12 senators. It would be a complete shut-out against GMA.
If the senatorial election is to be gauged as a referendum on GMA, then the verdict is loud and clear. The President should take heed.
TWO IMPORTANT LOCAL ELECTIONS
There are two other local elections that could be seen as a referendum on GMA – the Pampanga gubernatorial race and the Manila mayoral race.
Pampanga is the President’s home province. Two of the three gubernatorial candidates were her known political allies. The other was a priest who decided to challenge the goliaths of his province. The people of Pampanga had spoken – in favor of their priest and against their once favorite daughter.
Manila is the country’s capital. The mayoral candidate is the son of the incumbent mayor who was one of the staunchest allies of the President. Mayor Atienza even tried to destroy the Liberal Party by claiming to be its legitimate president. But the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Drilon wing of the Liberal Party. And the young Atienza was beaten by former Manila Mayor Lim, who was the Liberal Party’s presidential candidate in 1998.
Gauging by these two contests – Manila and Pampanga –, it looks like the President truly had lost the people’s mandate.
It appears that the only province that delivered for the President was Maguindanao. Unfortunately, her subalterns there overdid it. The votes for the senatorial candidates in that province may not even be counted. But counted or not, the Maguindanao vote has already given the President a big black eye in people’s perception.
DEMOCRATIC – NOT STRONG – REPUBLIC
The President should stop trying to be the strong(wo)man of the Strong Republic. Rather, she should act as the President of a working democratic republic. Even her idols George W. Bush and Tony Blair have learned their lessons. Blair was forced to retire early and Bush is now a lame duck president.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo still has time to remedy the situation and leave a legacy that her descendants would be proud of. But first, she should get advisers with a vision and not those interested only in petty politics.