Talk given at the Lay Society of St. Arnold Janssen (LSSAJ) General Assembly
18May2019
Less Than a week after the elections both pro- and anti- DU30 die-hards are terribly disappointed.
DU30 got his 12-0 in the Senate but utterly failed to install Bong Go (BG) as Number One. It makes the guided ladies very much in contention for a post-DU30 dispensation. This is the first impact of the last election. The manufacture of BG’s popularity was quite successful. In traditional terms he won the campaign. Cynthia Villar (CV) certainly never came close to BG’s level. If at all, Grace Poe it was who remained consistently “popular.”
Nonetheless, DU30 had made the election a referendum on his administration and expressly made BG the litmus test. BG was all but touted as family, no less. If BG had been allowed to make it to Number One, it would have been a clear win and quite in line with what some have suspected to be a Chinese-inspired DU30-for-life effort (reminiscent of Sukarno’s option to be President for life).
We intentionally used the word, “allowed” – and the question is “by whom or by what?” Is not the DU30 in total control of the Smartmatic-Comelec combine? Not totally – that is clear. Manny Villar and Franklin Drilon know better. Control of the combine is not had merely by current position of power but by current generosity of currency correctly directed. The recipient targets have to be accurately known or the effort becomes futile.
Hopefully the second impact of the last election should be the greater realization among us that national elections have indeed become a simple business on a big-time scale. I mean some business sectors deal with real estate or coco nuts, beer or hospitals or telecoms. The business subsector we are talking about deals with election results.
As everyone knows traditional vote-buying is still practiced a lot, even publicly blessed by the President – seemingly so (“for fare”, “pang gastos” etc.) And of course, vote-buying is possible only because of vote-selling. The differentiating characteristic of today’s elections, however, is that past a certain threshold one has to buy-and-sell not votes but election results. That simple? Yes, but again, the identification of who to deal with and what the going prices are make the business deal complicated because of the underground character of the operation. The underground economy is at its highest during these times. Value-free economists tend not to look askance at election-led economic recovery.
Again because of the underground nature of the business to know the marketing agents is itself a big deal. In this regard, no one is perfect – not even a reigning President. There was one who got destroyed with a tape-recorded telephone call that is now part of Philippine electoral history (“Hello, Garci!”). Another President so over-succeeded that the Vice-Presidential victory he ensured is still under protest.
In our times, how badly did DU30 need BG to be No.1? to what ends? That is the question.
In the SurveyNgBayan exit poll the vote preference share of BG stood at 56 percent while the vote share for CV was 44 percent. The margin of error for the poll was 5.14% – which, even when deducted, would still make BG end up with a much higher 51.86%, and if added to CV would only give her a 49.14 percent vote preference, falling far short of BG’s.
That same exit poll gave the following rankings:
1 Bong Go 56.00%
2 Bato de la Rosa 52%
3 Cynthia Villar 44.00%
4 Imee Marcos 38.00%
5 Grace Poe 37.00%
6 Francis Tolentino 34.00%
7 Pia Cayetano 30.00%
8. Sonny Angara 29.00%
9 Koko Pimentel 24.00%
10 Willy Ong 22.00%
11 Bong Revilla 22.00%
12 Lito Lapid 21.00%
13 JV Ejercito 20.00%
14 Nancy Binay 18.00%
15 Mar Roxas 17.00%
16 Jinggoy Estrada 13.00%
17 Glenn Chong 13.00%
18 Bam Aquino 12.00%
FINIS
THE GARDENER’S TALE OF LAST ELECTION’S IMPACT
Talk given at the Lay Society of St. Arnold Janssen (LSSAJ) General Assembly
18May2019
Less Than a week after the elections both pro- and anti- DU30 die-hards are terribly disappointed.
DU30 got his 12-0 in the Senate but utterly failed to install Bong Go (BG) as Number One. It makes the guided ladies very much in contention for a post-DU30 dispensation. This is the first impact of the last election. The manufacture of BG’s popularity was quite successful. In traditional terms he won the campaign. Cynthia Villar (CV) certainly never came close to BG’s level. If at all, Grace Poe it was who remained consistently “popular.”
Nonetheless, DU30 had made the election a referendum on his administration and expressly made BG the litmus test. BG was all but touted as family, no less. If BG had been allowed to make it to Number One, it would have been a clear win and quite in line with what some have suspected to be a Chinese-inspired DU30-for-life effort (reminiscent of Sukarno’s option to be President for life).
We intentionally used the word, “allowed” – and the question is “by whom or by what?” Is not the DU30 in total control of the Smartmatic-Comelec combine? Not totally – that is clear. Manny Villar and Franklin Drilon know better. Control of the combine is not had merely by current position of power but by current generosity of currency correctly directed. The recipient targets have to be accurately known or the effort becomes futile.
Hopefully the second impact of the last election should be the greater realization among us that national elections have indeed become a simple business on a big-time scale. I mean some business sectors deal with real estate or coco nuts, beer or hospitals or telecoms. The business subsector we are talking about deals with election results.
As everyone knows traditional vote-buying is still practiced a lot, even publicly blessed by the President – seemingly so (“for fare”, “pang gastos” etc.) And of course, vote-buying is possible only because of vote-selling. The differentiating characteristic of today’s elections, however, is that past a certain threshold one has to buy-and-sell not votes but election results. That simple? Yes, but again, the identification of who to deal with and what the going prices are make the business deal complicated because of the underground character of the operation. The underground economy is at its highest during these times. Value-free economists tend not to look askance at election-led economic recovery.
Again because of the underground nature of the business to know the marketing agents is itself a big deal. In this regard, no one is perfect – not even a reigning President. There was one who got destroyed with a tape-recorded telephone call that is now part of Philippine electoral history (“Hello, Garci!”). Another President so over-succeeded that the Vice-Presidential victory he ensured is still under protest.
In our times, how badly did DU30 need BG to be No.1? to what ends? That is the question.
In the SurveyNgBayan exit poll the vote preference share of BG stood at 56 percent while the vote share for CV was 44 percent. The margin of error for the poll was 5.14% – which, even when deducted, would still make BG end up with a much higher 51.86%, and if added to CV would only give her a 49.14 percent vote preference, falling far short of BG’s.
That same exit poll gave the following rankings:
1 Bong Go 56.00%
2 Bato de la Rosa 52%
3 Cynthia Villar 44.00%
4 Imee Marcos 38.00%
5 Grace Poe 37.00%
6 Francis Tolentino 34.00%
7 Pia Cayetano 30.00%
8. Sonny Angara 29.00%
9 Koko Pimentel 24.00%
10 Willy Ong 22.00%
11 Bong Revilla 22.00%
12 Lito Lapid 21.00%
13 JV Ejercito 20.00%
14 Nancy Binay 18.00%
15 Mar Roxas 17.00%
16 Jinggoy Estrada 13.00%
17 Glenn Chong 13.00%
18 Bam Aquino 12.00%
FINIS