Vote nut

 THE INC vote is a certainty.

The Iglesia ni Cristo brethren vote as one. More from personal reading now – as I am no INC affiliate – than hermeneutics is that one church, one-vote dogma grounded on Romans 15:6: “That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In all things, not the least in choosing the people’s leaders, is God glorified. Alleluia! 
No certainty though – in winning, is the INC vote. In local contests, the bloc votes are no surefire for electoral success. A case in point is Oca Rodriguez’s victory in his congressional rematch in 1995 against the INC-backed Didi Domingo. 
And then, there was the incumbent INC-propped Mark Lapid finishing dead last in the 2007 gubernatorial polls against proclaimed winner Eddie Panlilio, and recount victor Lilia Pineda.
Elections being a matter of addition and multiplication makes the INC vote a plus-plus factor nonetheless. 
Thus, its being a much-coveted prize among all candidates.
The Catholic vote is an improbability. Not the nullity it was readily dismissed to be after the bishop-blasted Joseph Estrada handily won the presidency in 1998. 
“Vote for persons who morally, intellectually, and physically show themselves capable of inspiring the whole nation toward a hopeful future.” So reverberated the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ pastoral statement from pulpits throughout the land. 
The not-so-subtle inference of moral wrongs on the womanizer, gambler, drinker and un-colleged Estrada not so much fallen on deaf ears as glossed over by the sheen of the Erap persona on the silver screen.
But there is such a thing as “Catholic influence” – that which Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile raised at the time of the deliberations on the Reproductive Health Bill.
This is much pronounced at the parish levels, especially in the rural areas where the cura parocco exercises the highest moral ascendancy and thereby the greatest influence in community life.   
So, who among the cerrado Catolico would dare even to conceive a questioning thought against the very voice of God emanating from the pulpit? 
Roma locuta est, causa finita est. Rome has spoken, the case is closed. The definitive end to all arguments of the medieval era is not extinct as the Borgia pope but as much extant today as Benedict’s infallibility. 
To a considerable majority of the Catholics, that is. That which so-called freethinkers have long ridiculed and despised as the miserably blinded faithful and unthinking fanatics.
Think and rethink: The intelligent vote is a fallacy.   
Why do we vote for those whom we vote? 
Family. The candidate is mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin to the nth degree of consanguinity dating to the discovery of the Philippines.
Friendship. The candidate is a childhood friend, barkada, friend of the wife, friend of a brother, friend of a cousin, friend of an uncle, friend of a friend, friend of a friend of a friend…
Favors. The candidate paid for the hospitalization of a family member, funeral expenses for a relative, school tuition of a child. Whence rises too the commodification of the vote, of the right of suffrage reduced to the transactional, to buy-and-sell, to trade or pawn.                  
Always visceral, very rarely cerebral. That’s the vote hereabouts. 
So, we ask again: In the pursuit of our electoral exercises do we ever, as we should, to quote Baruch Spinoza, “… use in security all (our) endowments, mental and physical, and make free use of (our) reason”?
So we vote nut. So, we are the nut. 

(Reprinted from Zona Libre, 7 February 2013)

 

May 1, 1990: The day press freedom was 'slain'

Phalanx of Cabcom troopers strike at Nel Dizon.

MAY 3 is World Press Freedom Day. Declared by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1993 to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Thirty years ago – on a May Day celebration – press freedom was bludgeoned, literally. Here is an account of that day as bannered in the May 2, 1990 issue of the Manila tabloid Afternoon HEADLINE, by-lined Bong Z. Lacson, president, Pampanga Press Club & chairman, NUJP-Pampanga:

Press freedom ‘slain’

CLARK SOLDIERS BRUTALIZE NEWSMEN  

FREEDOM of the press died before the main gate of Clark Air Base yesterday, slain by soldiers of the Republic – those very people sworn to uphold and protect it.

In what has turned to be the most violent rally dispersal yet, Philippine Air Force troops assigned to the Clark Air Base Command swooped down, as a rampaging wave of truncheon-wielding horde, on the hapless rallyists; hitting at will at anyone regardless of age or sex.

Corazon Asuncion, 62, of Orion, Bataan, slapped and kicked. Elena Viray, fortyish, of Samal, Bataan, truncheoned inside a vehicle. Joel Baul, 20, of Guagua, Pampanga hit with a stone. There were also boys aged 8-12 hit with truncheons. A total of 85 rallyists remained unaccounted for up to late last night.

What brought a spine-tingling sensation among mediamen was the presence of a special force noted to have specifically picked on those wearing press tags and vests, methodically going about their job of bashing heads and breaking shins. Why this “special treatment” of mediamen?

The Angeles Sun reporter Cheska calling for help for the bloodied Robert Quito. 

In a press statement released immediately after the Clark melee, the Pampanga Press Club condemned “in the strongest terms the blatant assault on press freedom… and holds Brig. Gen. Demetrio Camua, Cabcom deputy commander, responsible for this barbaric act.”

To the press corps, yesterday’s assault was the “culmination of the systematic harassment of mediamen by Cabcom that started with the coming to the base of General Camua.”

The local media have been vocal about perceived irregularities at Clark, allegedly involving Cabcom troopers. Alleged carnap syndicates, the mess in the garbage disposal contracts, widespread theft and robbery, and the “illegal detention” of 32 heads of cattle by Cabcom soldiers have been staple news in many local publications as well as in correspondents’ stories in the Manila papers.

It was after these stories found their way in the papers that mediamen covering rallies at Clark started getting hurt. First was Robledo Sanchez of Manila Times. Then came Sotero Chandler Ramas III of Daily Globe. Yesterday’s list grew longer: Norberto Quito, Philippine Star, with 12 stitches on a head wound; Renel Dizon, Philippine Weekly Graphic, contusions and abrasions in various parts of the body; Eric Jimenez, Angeles Sun, truncheoned; Noel Vizcocho, Manila Times, and Jun Dimaging, Bagong Pinoy, both missing until late last night, last seen being mauled by Cabcom soldiers; and again, Ramas and Sanchez.

“Camua and his running dogs have become the scourge not only of peaceful demonstrators but also of mediamen. The earlier they leave Clark, the better for us all,” said Fyodor Fabian, spokesman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines-Pampanga.

THE AFTERMATH. Both the NUJP and the National Press Club with its president Marcelo Lagmay provided all the legal, material and moral support to the PPC struggle for justice for Quito and the others. A symposium was held at the NPC to rally national attention to the case.

At the forefront of media protest march (L-R): Elmer Cato, Abner San Pedro, Bong Lacson, Jay Sangil, and Ric Valmonte (foreground)

The Quito mauling too spurred the first – and so far, only – media rally in front of Clark Air Base, participated in by some 200 Pampanga and Metro Manila mediamen including notables, NUJP chair Antonio Ma. Nieva; Atty. Ric Valmonte, president of the Philippine Movement for Press Freedom; and Rep. Oscar S. Rodriguez (3rd District-Pampanga). The rally was covered not only by the national media but also by the international news services Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France Presse, United Press International, Kyodo and Cable News Network.

Breaking through a military cordon, the media protesters achieved a historic first: the occupation of Clark’s main gate where no other group of rallyists ever came as close. Their streamers said it all: “Save Media, Oust Camua, et al.”

In what could have been a reversal of roles – as observed by a foreign correspondent – the protesting mediamen found themselves being covered – for protection – by policemen and Constabulary troopers with no less than their chiefs directing operations – Angeles Metrodiscom chief Col. Julius Yarcia and PPC-INP Recom 3 commander Brig. Gen. Manuel Bruan.

 

Occupying Clark Air Base Main Gate are (L-R): Ric Valmonte, Sonny Lopez, Jay Sangil, Nap Clemente, Bong Lacson, Abner San Pedro, Lino Sanchez, and Ody Fabian (cut). 

The House of Representatives too formed a committee to investigate the incident. As PPC president, I was among the principal resource persons at the hearings held by the joint committees on information and human rights chaired by Rep. Michael Mastura. Among the congressmen who immediately denounced Cabcom’s “system of aggression against the media” were Bonifacio Gillego, Venancio Garduso, Gregorio Andolana, Charito Plaza, and of course, Oscar Rodriguez.

The joint committees found the evidence we presented particularly damning: actual photographs of the mauling of Quito, Dizon and others, and the handkerchief-covered faces of their tormentors which Elmer Cato, Angeles Sun publisher and Manila Chronicle and Kyodo correspondent, painstakingly collated and documented. My question to the Cabcom officers present, “Since when did hankies-on-faces become part of the Air Force uniform?” provoked Gillego to denounce Cabcom as no different from robbers and highwaymen.

(From Chapter 3 – Waging War – of my book Of the Press (1999))

 

 

That job interview

OF ALL that’s been said, and continues to be said, about the habitual absenteeism of candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the presidential debates, none impacted the public’s mind more than its comparison to an apparently ardent applicant choosing to skip a job interview. A contradiction in terms, already a red flag there.

As the mere presence of all the other candidates in the debates shows the seriousness of their intent, Marcos Jr’s absence exposes his trifling take on the job on hand.

Marcos Jr. looks and acts the entitled whose name is all that’s needed to land this job, notwithstanding his putative lack of qualifications – if not patent disqualification, dearth of skills, and surfeit of failings. His direct display of disdain of the debates per se – didn’t he cry “biased” in that one moderated by Jessica Soho? – makes a complete revulsion of the democratic process of choosing leaders, argumentation and debate being essential to it.  

Hence, this is an insult to the intellect of the electorate, as it is a deprivation of their right to know – of Marcos Jr.’s government platform, if any – in order to make an informed choice come election day.

As bad as shortcutting the job interview process is in the corporate world, short-circuiting it in the political realm is the absolute pits. Marcos Jr. therefore deserving of all the opprobrium consequent to his absence in the debates.

Where the job interview analogy aptly applies to Marcos Jr., it cannot, however, serve as universal template for all elective positions. Job interviews obtain, indeed, oblige, where there are vacancies. As the presidency shall soon be. All applicants should go through the wringer, so to speak, to find the best qualified for the post, the highest in the land at that!

But where there are no vacancies, as in incumbencies, job interviews cease to become obligatory.

Election debates are primarily purposed for the public to know the candidates’ intents, plans, programs, or platforms of government. Thus, debates serve the wannabes best. By their words, the electorate shall know them.

For reelectionists, however, what the debates aim to impart to the public are already amplified in their actual performance in the course of their incumbency. By their work – or lack of it – they are already known by their constituents.

The principle of res ipsa loquitur – the thing speaks for itself – comes to work here. Aye, actions speak louder than words. Or, as the dearly lamented Cong Tarzan Lazatin lived it, Ditac a salita, dacal a gawa. Performance being the ultimate basis for the electorate to make an informed choice, more so, a well-formed judgment on the day of the vote.

Res ipsa loquitur. On that score, the incumbents’ participation in debates is reduced to nothing but a virtual replay of their mandatory state-of the-province, or state-of-the-city, or state-of-the-municipality addresses, generically known as the annual Ulat sa Bayan. A repetition that could be taken by the audience as a tooting of his/her own horn, an exercise in self-aggrandizement.  

Even the mere presence of the incumbents in the debates already puts them in an open season for their rival wannabes’ snide attacks, if only to cover up for their – the rivals’ – lack of qualifications or sheer incompetence. Phoned-in questions from supposed non-committed viewers are also routinely weaponized to strike at the incumbents.     

Diminished into ad hominems and non-sequiturs, as most political debates descend to, with the wannabe having everything to gain and nothing to lose, the incumbent almost always suffers a great disadvantage.

In this instance, it is not cowardice therefore – as it is generally (mis)construed – for the incumbents to skip debates. It is prudence.

 

A treatise on politics

 “AM I Machiavellian? Well, I’ve studied him quite thoroughly, and I know very many Machiavellians in my life.”

The hornets stirred by this declaration of presidential runner Ferdinand Marcos Jr. have not gone back to their nests yet so here’s one aged wasp joining the stinging frenzy.  
Finding nothing new to contribute to the discussions – ageing has put the processes of the intellect to a crawl – I burrowed deep into my Zona archives and found this piece dated Oct. 30, 2007, A primer to Panlilio. Yup, choice cuts from Old Niccolo applied to the then Reverend Governor of Pampanga. Here it is:

“A MAN who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessary come to grief among so many who are not good.”
That aphorism could have been specifically crafted for Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio in the wake of his honest act relative to the P500,000 donation he received in – not from – the Palace, and the seismic aftershocks it caused.
Easily, the quotation by its inspiring moral tone could have come only from a tome on values, if not the Holy Book itself.
Wrong. It is vintage 1500. From the little book that launched – and sank – a thousand political careers: Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince.
If he hasn’t, Panlilio should read – and internalize – the book, it being the definitive handbook of politics, power, and statesmanship.
The Prince – history tells us – nurtured through generations a virtual Who’s Who in the world political stage: Cardinal Richelieu, the de facto dictator of France at the time of Louis XIII; Christina, the queen of Sweden circa 1632-1654; Frederick the Great of Prussia; Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of the German Empire; Georges Clemenceau, French statesman and premier.
Notables of the 20th century who went to school in Machiavelli included Adolf Hitler, der fuehrer of the Third German Reich; Benito Mussolini, il duce of Fascist Italy; Vladimir I. Lenin, father of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and his heir Josef Stalin; and the Philippines’ Ferdinand E. Marcos, known to have made the book – not Imelda – as his bedside companion.
A virtual historical rogues’ gallery, that list by itself seems proof beyond doubt that indeed The Prince is the “blueprint for dictators” and its author the Devil Incarnate himself. Old Nick, the slang for the devil, is a take from Machiavelli’s given name. And Machiavellian entered the lexicon to mean crafty, shrewd, deceitful, immoral. This is an offshoot of the most famous quotation obtaining in the book: “The end justifies the means.”
Comes the question now: How does one steeped in Christian values – like Panlilio the priest-and-governor – come to terms with an opus placed in the Index of Prohibited Books in the Vatican in 1559 and, with the confirmation of the Council of Trent, decreed to be burned by the Inquisition?
Ain’t the priest and any Catholic for that matter sinning mortally by simply reading an “Indexed” book? (A confession: I first read The Prince in my Suprema (third year high school) class at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary. The copy smuggled in by my “free-thinking” professor in, of all subjects, trigonometry.)
Far from being the devil’s handiwork, The Prince – particularly its last chapter, Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians – made a number of invocations to the Almighty for national redemption and admonition for the leader to do his share in the effort: “God will not do everything, in order to deprive us of free will and the portion of the glory that falls to our lot.”
That’s just like the old, old very Christian saying “God helps those who help themselves.”
Though written against the backdrop of a long gone era, of an Italy fragmented into five major seats of power, The Prince has found currency through the ages as well as relevance and validity no matter the political setting, be it monarchical or republican, autocratic or democratic. Even in such a milieu as provincial politics and governance. Thus, its importance to Panlilio.
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and of his brains is from seeing the men (and more especially the women, if I may add) that he has about him. One can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
Atty. Vivian Dabu as (un)confirmed provincial administrator and Atty. Ma. Elissa Velez as (un)confirmed provincial legal counsel, choices Panlilio stubbornly pushed – no matter the media protest rally, the lamentations of Lolita Hizon and the sangguniang panlalawigan’s rejection – raised all speculations not so much about Panlilio’s brains as about his balls, and who’s holding, ay, grasping them.
Speaking of Hizon and other campaign supporters of the governor who reportedly had a “fall out” with him on some issues, here’s Machiavelli’s advice to Panlilio: “It is the nature of men (of women too, again we add) to be as much bound by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.”
Tit for tat or political payback, plain and simple.
Okay, okay, so the mayors are all ganging up on Panlilio on the issues of quarry and the P500,000 money. The governor, ensconced in his civil society, can find solace in Machiavelli: “A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.”
Again, seemingly written by Machiavelli with Panlilio in mind: “One who becomes prince by favor of the populace must maintain its friendship, which he will find easy, the people asking nothing but not to be oppressed.”
Arguably enjoying the support of the people, Panlilio must be wary though of those previously written about in this column as his myrmidons who do nothing but sing hosannas to him. Machiavelli cautions: “There is no other way of guarding one’s self against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.”
A primer on governance, The Prince is required reading not only for presidents but for every student of politics and power. Moreso for a priest who traded his parish church for the provincial Capitol.
PAST TO PRESENT. Still stripped of his priestly functions even after stepping down from the Capitol and two failed comeback tries, Ed Panlilio is far from having shunned politics. He is currently among the spearheads of the Leni-Kiko campaign in Pampanga.

 

 

The ex factor

THIS IS not about that unknown, thus X, element that makes one beauty stand out among a bevy of beauties, as in those Miss Whatever pageants or in modelling.

It’s all about the ex – as in erstwhile, former, once, onetime, past – elective officials seeking to regain lost political glory. Or how their past factors in their present quests. To the point: Does being an ex-mayor or ex-governor or ex-congressman or ex-whatever positively matter in elections?

The thought struck me seeing so many exes in Pampanga – maybe, even elsewhere -- running anew in the May 9 polls, even for the mayoralty alone.

In the 1^st District, there’s Malou Paras-Lacson in Magalang, and Boking Morales in Mabalacat City.   

In the 2^nd District, Carling de La Cruz in Porac, Art Salalila in Sta. Rita, Eddie Guerrero in Floridablanca, and once ALE Partylist Rep. Lina Cabrera in Sasmuan.

In the 3^rd District, Chito Espino in Arayat, and Oscar Rodriguez in the City of San Fernando.

In the 4^th District, Annette Flores-Balgan in Macabebe, Leonora Wong in San Simon, and Johnny Sambo in Sto. Tomas.

While sharing commonality in being exes, peculiarity obtains in their individual situations. 

Two are in for return bouts with their nemeses in the 2019 elections – Paras-Lacson versus incumbent Romy Pecson who beat her by 27 votes; Sambo against incumbent Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo.

Two were three-term mayors now incumbent vice mayors: Wong wanting to dislodge the once-suspended Abundio “JP” Punsalan; Flores-Balgan in sibling rivalry with elder brother Leonardo “Bobong” Flores.

Four are coming from loses in previous attempts: Guerrero who also lost in the vice mayoralty race right after his third term and in 2019 against incumbent Darwin Manalansan; Espino against now term-ending Bon Alejandrino; and Salalila against brother Dagi, the incumbent; Cabrera against incumbent Nardo Velasco. 

From a one-term hiatus, three termer De la Cruz now challenges reelectionist Jing Capil. Unable to recall a similar situation in past elections, a victory for the former will be a precedent of sorts here.  

Rodriguez is on a different level altogether: congressional winner in his first electoral foray in 1987, losing to Didi Domingo in 1992, winning over her in 1995, reelected in 1998 and 2001, winning the San Fernando mayoralty in 2004, 2007, and 2010, returning to Congress in 2013, losing his seat to Dong Gonzales in 2016, thought to have retired thereafter, beat the deadline for COC filing last year.     

Morales is sui generis in politics: vice mayor in 1988, losing in his first try for the mayoralty in 1992, winning in 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016 but unseated by the Comelec in 2017 for violation of the three-term limit – all of 16 years after the fact.   

The once-forever mayor ran for vice mayor in 2019 but lost – miserably – to his nephew Geld Aquino.

Now we go ex-factoring.

Nung anyang macalucluc ya milucas ya salol, ngeni pang yang managalan? (He lost when he was incumbent, how can he possibly win now that he is the challenger? – no direct translation of a rather picturesque Capampangan idiomatic expression there).

Apparently unapplicable to immediate return bouts, to wit:

Candaba Mayor Rene Maglanque lost to neophyte Danilo Baylon in 2016, but beat him in 2019.   

Incumbent Mayor Pecson lost to Paras-Lacson in 2016 and beat her in 2019. She is out to return the favor this May. An interesting fight if only for the degla. In Sambo versus Ronquillo too.

While a single loss proximate to end-term seems survivable, multiple ones are veritably insurmountable – Espino, Salalila, Cabrera – most especially those who went below their incumbent status and still lost, thus: Vice mayor namu mesambut cayu, qng panga-mayor nanu pang pag-asa yu? (You lost for vice mayor, what hope have you to win for mayor?) – Morales, Guerrero. Here is where the ex is hexed.

A case in reverse is that of Flores-Balgan and Wong – undefeated in three successive mayoralty runs, sitting vice mayors now. There is hardly any reference from their constituencies of their being ex. The mayoralty viewed as mere resumption of duty after the breather that is the vice mayoralty. This we have to see.  

Ex-three termers who lost in even but a single comeback bid who run anew face overwhelming odds, not the least the ridicule of their constituents: Bisa ca pa? E ca pa sinawa? Nanung e mu alacuan quen? (You still want (the position)? Aren’t you sated yet? What can’t you leave there? – direct translations now). Yo, Guerrero! Yo, Espino! Yo, Morales!     

How about Rodriguez?

The ex factor stacks up in Mang Oca’s favor – street parliamentarian, human rights lawyer, a pillar in legislation, brilliant prosecutor in the Estrada impeachment trial, father of San Fernando cityhood, World City Mayor Awardee, etcetera. Think gravitas and not one of his rivals even comes close, dare I say. And no apologies there. How all this stands against the factor of age, is all up to the electorate.    

Given the magnificence of his exes, were Mang Oca now imbued with the X factor – that “variable in a given situation that could have the most significant impact on the outcome…”

No fearless forecasts here, only random ruminations of an armchair theorist. Chillax.      

 (Punto! March 23, 2022) 

 

Marcos Jr. at 60%, seriously?

"OBVIOUSLY HE has captured the imagination of a good percentage of our voters. Also, he has more than adequate resources to sustain his presence in social media, his caravans, his campaign. Plus, his name of course and the association with his father has definitely benefited him from that."

So spoke Pulse Asia executive director Ana Tabunda of the February 18-23 survey her company conducted showing former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. keeping his lead over all other presidential aspirants.

Marcos Jr. polled 60% to VP Leni Robredo’s 15%, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno’s 10%, Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s 8%, and Sen. Ping Lacson’s 2%. The rest of the presidential timbers obviously axed unceremoniously from the survey’s interview schedule.

And Pulse Asia has never been wrong in predicting the next president, so stressed Tabunda in ANC Headstart.

Gloating over the results, Marcos Jr. spox Vic Rodriguez said the survey “has again debunked the fake narrative being forced by some small segment of our society on the current sentiments” of Filipinos on the May 9 elections.

Rubbing it in: “While some of them may claim that they are winning in ‘Twitter’ and ‘Google’ searches, frontrunner Bongbong Marcos is winning the battle with the Filipino people.” So was he quoted in media.  

Quick and querulous are the dismissals of the survey results as the “false pulse” of the electorate, Pacquiao and Lacson unbothered a bit.

The Kakampink movement of Robredo went the full nine yards questioning the accuracy of the methodology, disparaging the implausibility of the results.

Argument 1: Marcos polled 60% of 2,400 adult respondents – that is a total of 1,440 individuals – and it’s already reflective of the preference of the national electorate.  Robredo has been gathering mammoth audiences by the scores of thousands in rallies in Naga, Quezon City, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Cavite, Bulacan and Bacolor, even in the so-called Solid North province of Isabela and that’s 15%?

Argument 2: Marcos has 60% of the vote when he could not even get decent numbers – hakot and takot notwithstanding – to rallies that his minions had to cancel. Resibo: Antique, Mindoro, Tarlac, Paranaque.

Argument 3: Marcos has 60% preference and still his handlers have to multiply a thousandfold the measly 18,000 attendees and spectators to his caravan-rally in Las Piñas to an incredible 500,000?  

Resibo from CNN: “Las Piñas City Police Chief Col. Jaime Santos on Monday confirmed that the police estimated around 5,000 people were inside The Tent, Global South in the city, where Marcos and other candidates of UniTeam held a rally. He also confirmed that around 3,000 people gathered outside the venue, while over 10,000 participated in the caravan.”

Aye, there is more, much more accuracy in surveying lands than people here.

And once more the broken record that I am when it comes to opinion polling plays anew: Believe in published surveys at your own peril.
Case 1: In 2007, then-Rep. Rey Aquino was so gung-ho at taking back the San Fernando mayoralty from incumbent Oscar Rodriguez – “Pamacsi que y Oca” – with a 60 to 40 edge in surveys. Oca won, as he did in all but two – 1992 and 2016 – electoral contests he joined: 1987, 1995, 1998, 2001 congressional races, and the 2004 mayorship, even as he always lost in all published surveys on those elections.
Case 2: Crisostomo Garbo was never the top choice in any survey but won all elections he entered – as Mabalacat councilor twice, first district board member three times, vice mayor once, and mayor now twice. Currently, Garbo is polled as winning in one survey while another showed him losing to political newbie broadcaster Deng Pangilinan.
So, again, I write: Surveys are meant to serve as campaign guideposts. Their efficacy to gain some bandwagon effect has long been lost because of surfeit and the incredibility of results.
Which makes this whole affair of press releasing survey results, whether factual or false, a double-edged sword. Propaganda – as these survey releases are nothing but – can always backfire. With the outcome diametric to the intended results. Propa-pangit. The spinmeisters of my generation coined that word for it.      

Triumphant Truman displays erroneous Chicago Daily Tribune banner headline on the result of the 1948 US presidential polls. Getty Images/grabbed from web

The perils of opinion polls – along with the overconfidence they bring to their purported winners – are best exemplified in the (in)famous “Dewey defeats Truman” US prudential elections of 1948.

New York Governor Thomas Dewey was by most indications in the polls was on the way to an easy victory over incumbent President Harry Truman who was into his first election for president, having succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt who died in office in 1945.

Truman’s Democratic Party had splintered into three factions and pre-election polls signaled Dewey was so comfortably ahead that one of the three national pollsters at that time, Elmo Roper, declared he would release no further survey results unless a political miracle intervened.

So confident of winning that Dewey was said to have told supporters: “… always remember, when you’re leading, don’t talk.” 

On the other hand, Truman “had just one strategy—attack, attack, attack, carry the fight to the enemy’s camp,” so we read in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David McCullough. 

The outcome of the elections – and with it “the epic failure of the pollsters, pundits, and the press” – is memorialized in that picture of Truman in triumph holding aloft the Chicago Daily Tribune with the erroneous banner headline “Dewey defeats Truman.” 

No, I am neither parallelizing past and present political events nor insinuating anything.

 

 

 

Vanity unfair

AESOP made a fable of it: “The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel, and said, ‘What a cloud of dust do I raise.’”

The taga-ilog crafted a proverb out of it: “Langaw na dumapo sa likod ng kalabaw, pakiwari’y malaki pa sa tinuntungan.”
The taga-pampang, never to be outdone by their neighbors, witticised it thus: “Soga ing penako na, katayid damulag ya.”
“So there are some vain persons, that, whatsoever goeth alone or moveth upon greater means, if they have never so little hand in it, they think it is they that carry it.” So wrote the great English essayist Francis Bacon on the subject.
Yeah, it’s vainglory we are talking about here, dummy.
As in basking in reflected glory, like the moon boasting of its light that is no more than that reflected upon it by the sun.
So common in sons of not necessarily illustrious, but even merely popular, fathers. Some even get to be governors totally clueless in the art of governance. (Update: Others even ambitioning to the presidency on the grounds of their forebear’s infamy. Yea, like you-know-he.)
As in huffing and puffing to look heftier and mightier than one’s real puny, sorry self. Paper tigers, the activists of the ‘60s call them. Menacing but totally harmless. Like some soldier-boys you and I know.
As in a mere foot soldier claiming full credit for victory in war.
Come to think of it, wasn’t the great 1st Lt. Ferdinand E. Marcos of USAFFE cited for single-handedly delaying the fall of Bataan and Corregidor for one month? Only, the citation came nearly 20 years after the fact, err, the lie.
There is one writer, Michael Korda in his book Power, if I am not mistaken, who pricked the vainglorious bubble thus: “Only a weakling will endeavor to display strength at every turn.”
So there, form over substance. Clanging cymbals signifying nothing, the Apostle Paul preached of vanities.
So beware of him that blows his own trumpet. For there is nothing there but hot, always fetid, air. And he too that follows him.
Take heed of Bacon: “(Vain)Glorious men are the scorn of wise men; the admiration of fools; the idols of parasites; and the slaves of their own vaunts.”
Lofty, lofty classical thoughts there we have to translate to current times. So, vainglory goes from the sublime to the, err, clinical. Yeah, to the child psychologist’s ADHD -- attention deficiency hyperactive disorder.
And from the clinical to the sublimely ridiculous, KSP – kulang sa pansin.
So have you noticed those bloated tarpaulined egos lately?
Truly pathetic.

(First published in Punto! Feb. 10, 2008, reprinted March 7-12, 2022 for its relevance to the times.)