“The same thing is happening now.”
One of the best barometers to determine where an election is going is the last-minute shift of support thrown by businessmen and big political aggrupation to a particular candidate. For the businessmen, obviously for business reasons as they are no philanthropists to waste monetary support for a certain candidate whom he or initially supported but shows no signs of winning or even simply gaining traction in his or her campaign. For the political groups, it’s plain and simple survival.
History will back me up on this.
In 2016, when I was still with another paper, I wrote an article regarding a big businessman who, through a known fixer in the judiciary, allegedly bankrolled Senator Grace Poe-Llamanzares’ citizenship case before the Supreme Court promising each justice P50 million each just to dismiss the petition to disqualify her.
The funny thing is that while I did not name the businessmen, nor gave a hint as to his or her identity, his emissary gave me a call asking to take down my article, which I refused.
A month before the elections, this businessman shifted loyalty and threw his support behind then-Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Months before the 2016 elections, I was invited to cover the declaration of One Cebu for its support to then Vice President Jejomar Binay. About the same time the businessman I mentioned earlier jumped shift in favor of Duterte, One Cebu joined the bandwagon, dumping Binay in favor of Duterte. What’s so unfortunate is that they announced their shift of support while Binay was still in Cebu for his sortie.
Aside from One Cebu and the businessman, many political parties and local government officials that time, abandoned the candidate they had supported earlier and jumped to the Duterte bandwagon.
The same thing is happening now.
We are all aware that the PFP-Laban faction of Energy Secretary Al Cusi have been secretly supporting Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso’s presidential run. They cannot dismiss that fact given the personnel who are identified with them are now working for the Manila mayor.
But a few days ago, Cusi and his faction announced they will be supporting the candidacy of Partido Federal ng Pilipinas standard bearer, former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos. Jr.
A couple of days later, it was the National Unity Party, the political party backed by businessman Enrique Razon, who reportedly is also supporting Domagoso, pledged their support for BBM.
Surely, they would not have waited until this moment to announce their presidential preference if they didn’t think BBM would be a sure winner. Sabi nga, sigurista.
For the administration party, the PDP-Laban, going for BBM would be buying a smooth exit plan. Remember that before the election campaign started, some personalities identified with the administration have been subjected to a Senate probe regarding allegations of corruption in the disbursement of COVID-19 funds.
While many are saying that BBM, at this point in time, no longer needs their endorsement to achieve victory come May 9, the support of these two groups are of course a welcome development for his camp as it means lesser opposition to deal with.
For Domagoso, it would be a great loss as not only he loses additional machinery for his campaign but also the much-needed financial support from Razon.
For the rest of the candidates, especially the Pinklaws, they would now have to deal with extra campaign support thrown by PDP-Laban and NUP to BBM. Additional machinery, supporters and maybe funding, reducing their chances from minimal before to nil or almost zero.
With a little over a month to go before the elections, I believe it’s already game over. May nanalo na.
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Erratum
My apologies to Iana Luis Padilla, whose article I published in my column space last Saturday.
As we were only talking on the phone, I unfortunately misquoted Atty. Tranquil Salvador as to her background. She was not his student, but rather, the classmate and best friend of his daughter. She only interviewed Atty. Tranquil for her article.
My sincere apologies to Iana and her teacher.