“Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman is expected to anoint himself anytime soon as the new chieftain of the LP. That’s like using hot air, and plenty of it, for the fuel of a malfunctioning car engine”
The elections are over. Voters nationwide gave Bongbong Marcos (BBM) and Sara Duterte an unprecedented mandate to run the country as their president and vice president, respectively.
Leni Robredo and Kiko Pangilinan, the de facto candidates for president and vice president, respectively, of the much-despised Liberal Party lost the elections miserably. The votes they got were not even half of what the BBM-Sara tandem obtained.
Robredo and Pangilinan knew that the LP had become so unpopular that to identify themselves with the LP was to court sure defeat at the ballot box. Yellow, the color associated with the LP, was scorned by many, and to use it in the campaign was a kiss of death.
Thus, Robredo and Pangilinan resorted to the color pink in their campaign propaganda. While Robredo and Pangilinan remained top officials of the LP, they did not use the LP logo or the color yellow on any of their campaign paraphernalia, and in their campaign sorties.
Although the fickle and underhanded Robredo claimed to be an “independent” candidate, it was very obvious that she and Pangilinan were in fact the LP’s bets.
Even their incompetent campaign manager, ex-Senator Bam Aquino, openly flaunted his status as an LP official.
The Robredo-Pangilinan deception did not fool the electorate That is why the rival camps called them the pinklawans, a hybrid of pink and dilaw (yellow).
In the end, the pinklawans were victims of their own misrepresentations.
Not only did Robredo and Pangilinan lose; the LP failed to get even one of its senatorial candidates elected. Beginning noon of June 30, 2022, none of the 24 incumbent senators will be from the LP.
After the 2019 midterm elections, the LP had only 15 members in the House of Representatives of Congress. That number dwindled to just nine following the May 2022 elections.
The LP claims it has 400 local officials elected under its banner in the recent polls. That will not be for long.
Many local officials have a penchant for switching their political ties to the party in power. They change their party affiliation as often as they change their clothes.
News reports have it that Robredo and Pangilinan are resigning as officials of the LP. Big deal!
That’s like resigning from a company that exists only as a shell corporation. It doesn’t really matter to the electorate and, quite frankly, nobody is interested in the LP anymore other than its misguided hangers-on.
Albay Representative Edcel Lagman is expected to anoint himself anytime soon as the new chieftain of the LP. That’s like using hot air, and plenty of it, for the fuel of a malfunctioning car engine. The car is not bound to go anywhere.
The LP is expected to be dormant for the next six years, and six more years after that, in the likely event that the very popular Sara Duterte is elected president in 2028. By that time, the LP dinosaur shall have been just a nightmare in the annals of Philippine politics.
What will happen to Robredo and Pangilinan? In my opinion, they ought to take their bearings from what happened to former Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Senator Gregorio Honasan.
Binay, as the sitting vice president, ran for president in 2016, but lost. In 2019, he ran for congressman in his bailiwick, Makati, but lost again. Last May, he lost in the senatorial elections, ending up at 13th place.
Honasan was Binay’s vice presidential running mate, and lost with him in 2016. He lost his bid to return to the Senate in the May 2022 polls.
Both Binay and Honasan are facing political perdition.
It is doubtful if Robredo and Pangilinan can win if they run for the Senate in 2025.
Jinggoy Estrada, who placed 12th in the winning circle of 12 candidates in the recent election, obtained almost 15 million votes. Robredo and Pangilinan each got less votes compared to what Estrada garnered.
Like Binay and Honasan, Robredo and Pangilinan ought to retire from politics.
What will happen to the communist allies of the LP who openly supported and identified with the Leni-Kiko tandem?
The communists were already marginalized under President Rodrigo Duterte. With the defeat of the Leni-Kiko ticket, they have nowhere to go.
For sure, there will be stragglers among the communists, but they will be confined to making unfounded public accusations against the incoming BBM administration, or to go on with their banditry in the countryside by extorting “revolutionary taxes” against whomsover they choose, just to allow their boss, Jose Maria Sison, to continue living in luxurious exile in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
The incoming BBM administration, through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, is expected to put a resounding end to the evil communist menace that has afflicted our people for decades.