Category: noynoy

cut PNoy some slack, and digong, too

i don’t know what the Left is up to, but between jose maria sison all the way from europe and satur ocampo here at home along with the makabayan bloc in congress, they sure are making a lot of noise, making kulit the presumptive prez about charging and arresting the incumbent prez (and his dbm sec) for plunder once the latter steps down.

come on, guys, cut PNoy some slack.  why can’t it wait?   it’s just another month and a half.  let’s give him the space to exit with some dignity naman.  talo na nga ang manok niya, konting simpatiya naman.  surely you know how that feels.

and take it easy with presumptive prez digong, too.  all this whining about digong’s “neoliberal” 8-point economic program is premature.  right now the duterte camp’s priority, i would think, is to calm the market.  which is good.  so give him, and nation, a break naman please.

unless, of course, the idea is simply to agitate, strike everywhere na lang, never mind that, given the disgraceful antics of COMELEC and smartmatic, there’s enough agitation already over the counting of votes, not to speak of bongbong marcos’s strong showing.  i can’t believe nga that you guys don’t seem to care how many votes your candidates truly got, kahit pa talo na.

or is all the noise in aid of distracting us from the fact that you guys lost this one yet again and risa didn’t.  but isn’t that balanced out by joma sison’s direct line to duterte?  naguguluhan tuloy kami.  lousy PR, guys.

you had it coming, this from duterte spokesman peter tiu laviña, no less, who i am told knows whereof he speaks, especially with regard to the extreme Left.  his statement in full, publicly shared on facebook 12 hours ago:

A mistake not corrected becomes an error. A mistake may not be intentional, but to commit the same could be fatal. Leftist groups have rejected the hands of friendship and cooperation by the incoming Duterte administration by mouthing their usual criticism of others but not undertaking their own criticism, self-criticism.

They made a patented error in reading the national situation and made a grave one in pulsing the mood of our people. They did it in 1985 and did it again in the 2016 election. They boycotted the election in 1986 and went with another candidate 30 years later. For groups that claim that they are patriotic, nationalist and anti-imperialist, many were aghast in their decision to go with someone who abandoned our country and once pledged allegiance to the US.

At least their units in Mindanao which were more grounded did not go with the selfish, myopic and opportunist posturing of its national higher organs. In their desire to push one of their national officials to be senator, they rush to a hasty decision rejecting calls to wait for the maturing of the political situation before deciding. Having done these mistakes, they want to continue with their old ways of critiquing, critiquing, critiquing. I am truly sorry for these leftist groups which will be left out in the march of history with their dogma and belligerent styles and methods of work. They need to right their wrongs and stop becoming roadblocks to genuine change. They should bring down their utopian dreams closer to reality. Sustained gains even little by little here and there to advance the cause of the masses are better than none at all. To perpetuate the sufferings of the masses is treasonous, a betrayal to serve them.

Their ways of pressuring others with the barrel of the gun and noise by the minority are now passe.

Here is an unsolicited advice to them – dialogue with the incoming government instead of mounting black propaganda to be heard. And listen to your units in Mindanao. Otherwise, you will be proving to be yet another bunch of trapos.

Is it the end of Binay?

Marvin A. Tort

With his resignation from the Cabinet last Monday, it appears to be the beginning of the end for Vice-President Jejomar Binay’s presidential ambition. Amid corruption allegations and ongoing investigations, his poll numbers are down. Based on the latest Pulse Asia Survey, he is now at second place in the 2016 presidential race with 22%.

Senator Grace Poe, who was elected to national office for the first time in 2013, has snatched the lead from him with 30%. Following Binay at third is Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte with 15%. And tied at fourth place are Interior Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II and former President and incumbent Manila City Mayor Joseph Estrada, both with 10%.

Also on the list are Senators Miriam Defensor Santiago and Alan Peter Cayetano, and former Senator Panfilo Lacson. Note that in Pulse Asia’s June 2015 poll, a relatively high 87% of those polled expressed a clear preference for a particular or specific presidential contender. Only 2.5% did not have a clear choice or had refused to reply.

Does this now mean that the Binay presidential bid is dead in the water? Not necessarily so. With 11 months to go to the May 2016 election, a lot can still happen. This can turn just as quickly as they did for Binay in the last three months. Just last March, he was still in the lead with 29%, and Poe was second with 14%. Estrada and Duterte shared third with 12% each. Since then, Binay and Estrada went down, while Poe, Duterte and Roxas climbed.

Pulse Asia had noted that during the survey period, the voting public was exposed to various news reports. Of these, in my opinion four items had the most significant impact on the survey result:

• Binay’s investigation by the Ombudsman and the continuing hearings at the Senate of his alleged corruption, including the freezing of his bank accounts by the Court of Appeals as requested by the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

• A Commission on Audit (CoA) report which claims that P670 million from 49 lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund and the administration’s Disbursement Acceleration Program, which were released through the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, ended up in the hands of several questionable nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

• A meeting between President Benigno S. C. Aquino III and Senator Grace Poe in connection with the possibility of the latter running as President or Vice-President in May 2016 under the Liberal Party and the disqualification issue based on her alleged lack of residency.

• The exchange of words between Vice-President Binay and Senator Poe, with the former saying that the next Philippine president should have experience and the latter replying that quality of service and honesty are more important than length of service or experience.

Of these four, three had a negative impact on Binay, directly or indirectly, while the same three had a positive impact on Poe. Moreover, there was no significant pickup, either by the public or politicians, of the CoA report on more pork barrel funds going to questionable NGOs. This particular issue “died” a natural death, it seems.

Crucial here is timing, obviously. A seven-point drop for Binay from March to June is big but not unexpected. The timing of the CA order to freeze his bank accounts (which tend to prejudge his guilt) was significant. And so was the timing of the meeting between the President and Poe (which tend to indicate his possible endorsement of her candidacy.)

In the September 2014 survey, Binay fell 10 points in just about 10 weeks. Timing was also crucial, as the poll was held at the height of the media frenzy on allegations of corruption and hidden or undeclared wealth against him and his family (wife Elenita as former Makati mayor; and son Jejomar, Jr. as Makati mayor).

In particular, it was on Sept. 11, while the Pulse Asia survey was ongoing, when former Makati Vice-Mayor Ernesto Mercado testified at the Senate on Binay’s alleged kickback of 13% from each public works project in the city. He also claimed that bags of money were being delivered regularly to the Binay household, and that money would occasionally be received by Binay’s daughter Nancy, now a senator. The same September Pulse survey already showed Senator Grace Poe as the top choice for Vice-President in 2016 with 31% (up from 26% in June 2014).

Despite her 30% at present, I am not putting my money on Poe just yet. I sense that a lot of “research” is now going on, with her detractors looking hard for things or issues — no matter how small — that may be used against her in the “appropriate” time. Again, timing is the main consideration here.

In 2013, Poe and another Binay ran for a Senate seat at the same time. Poe got over 20 million (51%) to land at No. 1 in the Senate race, while Binay (Nancy) got 16 million votes to land at No. 5. Was this a prelude to 2016? Can we expect the same results when Poe goes up against Nancy’s dad in May?

In 1992, Fidel Ramos needed just 23.58% or 5.3 million votes to become President. In 1998, Estrada needed just 10.7 million votes. I believe that Binay has better chances of winning in a three- or four-cornered fight in 2016. Poe is likely to get the upper hand in a one-on-one with the Vice-President.

In October 2009, President Aquino polled at 44%, while Senator Manny Villar 19% and former President Estrada 11%. By May 2010, Aquino won with 42% of the votes. Estrada came in second with 26%, and Villar third with 15%. Also that October, Roxas polled at 37%, while Binay at 13%, coming in third after Senator Loren Legarda’s 23%. Binay eventually won with almost 42% of the votes, followed by Roxas with almost 40%, and then Legarda with over 12%.

Both Estrada and Binay surged from October 2009 to May 2010, by 15 and 29 percentage points, respectively. Estrada came in second partly because Aquino was a strong contender to begin with. But had Aquino opted out of the 2010 poll, Estrada would have been the likely winner. But Binay managed a win even against a stronger contender like Roxas, although he had no major “baggage” at the time. Also, in May 2010, Aquino got just 600,000 more votes than Binay.

Despite everything that has been hurled at Binay since last year, and while his poll numbers have dropped, his trust rating still went up. In the latest poll, Binay reportedly recorded “the only majority trust rating” in the quarter with 57%, up by 15 points from 42% in March. Aquino’s latest trust rating was 50%, up from his record-low 36%.

Binay’s approval rating is at 58% while Aquino is at 54%. The Senate as an institution, and where Senator Grace Poe belongs, recorded an approval rating of only 40%. This is higher than the House of Representatives’ 35%, but lower than the Supreme Court’s 44%.

Does this mean then that despite the corruption allegations against him as a former city mayor, people still trust the Vice-President? That people still perceive him as performing better than the President and other officials? That at this point, he is even more trustworthy than the President? If so, can he keep or improve on that trust, and can he turn it into votes?

tricky times

medyo di ako makapaniwala na maaaring hindi si mar roxas ang i-annoint ni presidente aquino na kandidato ng liberal party sa 2016.  parang walang-utang-na-loob ang dating nito sa akin.  kahit pa sabihing mar had no choice but to put off his own plans of running for president given the clamor for noynoy in 2009 in the wake of cory’s demise.  because mar could have handled it differently, he could have resisted some, he could have tried to convince cory’s kids, and nation, na maigi kung mag-VP muna si noynoy, get into the groove, ika nga.

hindi naman kaila sa ating mga beterano sa bantay-pulitika na noynoy was kind of a non-performer in congress during his three terms in the lower house and half-term in the senate.  ang tsismis pa nga e kung hindi siya ipinangampanya ni cory at ni kris nuong 1998, 2001, 2004, at 2007 ay wala siyang panalo.

my favorite anecdote about his days in the lower house was told by no less than bff butch abad in some tv show after cory’s death but before he, noynoy, became a candidate for president.

say ni butch abad, a close friend of the family, nagkasabay sila ni noynoy sa house of reps (malamang nuong panahon ni gloria kung kailan usong uso ang televised debates and hearings).  kung minsan daw, tinatawagan siya ni cory, na nanonood pala, at itinatanong kung nasaan si noynoy, bakit wala si noynoy, and butch would daw say, baka ho natutulog pa.  or something to that effect.  of course such stories stopped the moment he decided to run.

bentang-benta kay noynoy noon, just as bentang-benta kay grace ngayon, ang notion na it’s now or never.  run while the clamor is insane.  but imagine if noynoy had run for VP muna and campaigned like hell for mar — tiyak, tumba pa rin si erap.  then he could have asked president mar for the mindanao portfolio, since napaka-dear-to-his-heart pala ang bangsamoro, and used the 6 years to quietly do his homework, due diligence ika nga.  what a powerpacked 2016 inaugural it could have been if he had surprised the nation with a report on his meetings with ALL factions in the autonomous region and he would be certifying as urgent his own draft proposal for a revitalized ARMM.

i know.  pipe dream.  water under the bridge.  right now, the question is, what is all this panliligaw kay grace poe all about?  is he seriously considering sidelining, instead of throwing all his support behind, mar roxas?  the more the prez keeps the nation hanging, the more i wonder if he might do a cory, who did not feel obliged to honor any promises made to doy laurel when he gave way to her and slid down to VP back in ’85-’86.

what intrigues me most though is that grace seems most receptive to the president’s advances — kilig to the bones? — even as she has started to echo the yellow army’s anti-binay sentiments.  what i really want to know is where she stands on chacha, especially proposed amendments to economic provisions.  or maybe we should be asking chiz.  argh.

mamasapano mystery

so the police report is out, and a senate draft report, too, and the consensus is in.  the buck stops with the president, not with napenas.  and we people who thought the president was, is, ultimately responsible for the tragic outcome, we are feeling vindicated.

the consequent drop in approval and trust ratings should move the president, if he is smart, to change tactics.  this is the time to think out of the box, no, out of the corner he has painted himself into, if he wants to come out of this with any semblance of gravity or grace.

for one, the president should stop defending the indefensible.  the story that he gave napenas, or is it purisima, orders to coordinate with the AFP but he was disobeyed, lied to, fooled, does not fly.

it needs elaboration because it raises more questions, like why was he not fully on top of it, a mission so important and so delicate,  given the MILF arena and the peace talks.  and knowing of the rift between SAF and the AFP, why did he not sit them all down, together, purisima and napenas with espina and catapang, and order them to coordinate and to prevent any leaks that would alert marwan and usman (not to speak of the MILF), or else!  and why was the MILF not informed, kahit time-on-target lang, so they could start to get the word out to their people and their troops: keep your heads down, hindi tayo ang sadya nila, hindi tayo ang kalaban.  unless, of course,  totoo ang tsismis na kanlong-kanlong nila sina marwan at usman?

for another, the president should stop hitting at napenas, who is a victim, too, of mamasapano.  wala na siyang ginawang tama?  LOL.  then the same should be said of the ones who ordered him around.  and what about the latest from the prez, that napenas could have aborted the operation nuong behind schedule na, buking liwayway na.

The President said that during the actual execution of the operation, Napenas had two instances when he could have aborted the mission.

These include the late arrival of the first SAF seaborne unit resulting in only 13 commandos crossing the river to the target area, and the late arrival of the reinforcing units for the extraction.

like i replied to a comment here, six americans were looking over napenas’s shoulder at the time.  surely there was a consensus to continue.  and surely the president knew of the american presence, because if he didn’t, what would that say of the president?  and of the american presence?