Mar Roxas was a victim

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
by William M. Esposo
from The Philippine Star

From the results of 90.03% of votes cast for the vice presidential race which were released last Friday evening by the PPCRV-KBP, the SWS (Social Weather Stations) and Pulse Asia Exit Polls seemed to have accurately forecasted a Jojo Binay victory over Mar Roxas.

In the SWS Exit Poll which was based on the responses of 35,825 voters, Jojo Binay won with a 40.7% vote over Mar Roxas who had 38.3%. In the Pulse Asia-ABS-CBN Exit Poll, Binay won over Roxas, 42.7% versus 37.4%. In the PPCRV-KBP results last Friday, Binay continued to lead Roxas by 802,684 votes. Based on the estimated 37,500,000 actual votes cast, Binay’s 800,000 lead represents around 2%.

Contrary to what the Liberal Party camp has been claiming — that Roxas will win by anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 votes — it looks like the country will have its First Black Vice President in Jojo Binay, as the text joke proclaimed. The breakdown of the unreported votes supports the assessment of ABS-CBN Research head Vivian Tin that with just 3 to 3.5 million votes to account for, it is now very difficult for Roxas to overtake Binay.

The bulk of the votes in the three regions where Roxas won (Caraga Region, Regions 6 and 7) have already been included in the present tally where Binay leads by over 800,000 votes. Per the PPCRV-KBP May 13 Summary, only 10.02% of the Caraga Region, 10.24% of Region 6 and 17.0% of Region 7 were unreported. Whatever gains Roxas can still make from these three regions which supported him cannot offset the still unreported votes from the 14 other regions where Binay won.

This is especially true in the ARMM where 29.45% were still unreported as of May 13 and where Roxas was junked owing to his opposition to the failed MOA-BJE. In the 70.46% ARMM votes that were already counted, Roxas only got 16.6% of the votes and lost to Binay by a margin of 243,291. Even Ronnie Puno will find it extremely difficult to make Roxas win in the 29.46% unreported votes of the ARMM.

More than the phenomenal surge of Jojo Binay, Mar Roxas may have been the bigger victim of the very people surrounding him. For one, they did not protect his lead and allowed Mar to be overwhelmed like an amateur UAAP basketball player playing Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers. They were busy parading around town like peacocks when Mar was enjoying an over 20% lead over his nearest rival.

Our STAR colleague and Ateneo fellow alumnus Babe Romualdez wrote a column during that time when Manny Villar came to within 2% of Noynoy Aquino where Babe narrated how the Mar group was expressing regret for having given way to Aquino. The Mar people were then deluding themselves that Mar would have been the real winner.

That is of course pure delusion. Mar gave way to Noy because his presidential campaign was not going anywhere and demonstrated all the signs of a weak brand. That weak brand was demonstrated anew with the way Jojo Binay overtook Mar Roxas in this election. Having courted hubris, Mar’s people saw Mar needing all those TV ads where Noy strongly endorsed Mar as his only vice president and true partner in the rebuilding of the country.

Bad enough that they’ve failed to protect Mar’s lead — these political parasites are now even creating unnecessary friction and enemies. At a time when Mar desperately needs added allies and friends and should be positively influencing people — they’ve been transforming allies and friends into enemies and turning off people.

They’ve been badmouthing people whom they’ve accused of stabbing Mar in the back and promoted a Noy-Bi (Noynoy Aquino-Jojo Binay) tandem. Some of these issues have already made it to media. They make it appear that if an Aquino supporter opts to support Binay, then that is treachery. That can be considered treachery only if you’re a member of the Liberal Party but if you’re not then it’s nobody’s business to tell you how to choose your vice president.

Even Aquino’s sisters were not spared and have been painted by this group as members of a cabal that’s out to dominate the inner circle of power in the Aquino administration. Actually, it is the opposite. They are the ones who are salivating to dominate the inner circle of power. Among those whom they’ve badmouthed were your Chair Wrecker, Conrad de Quiros, Tony Meloto, Boy and Maria Montelibano, Peping Cojuangco, Popoy Juico and Pastor “Boy” Saycon. Wow! Do these lightweights think that they can really take on heavyweights?

They have the gall and the temerity to badmouth Tarlac Kingpin Peping Cojuangco even when the numbers are there staring them in the face that Roxas won in Tarlac by a margin bigger than the votes Binay got in the province. In Tarlac, Roxas got 317,843 votes versus Binay’s 129,523, a margin of 188,320. Had Peping campaigned for a Noy-Bi tandem, Binay would have easily gotten double his votes in the province.

These were the very people who tried to surround and dominate Noynoy Aquino and were the ones running the campaign like amateurs when Aquino’s ratings plunged from a high of 60% to a low of 35%. The timely entry of veterans, notably the media team headed by Maria Montelibano, arrested the plunge and helped steer Noynoy to victory.

Are we surprised that Mar’s ratings also suffered a similar crash? Unfortunately for Mar, it was too late to reverse the downward spiral and arrest the upward trend of Binay. Also, instead of having a team like that of Maria Montelibano to arrest his slide — Mar fell victim to the advice of those in his camp who pushed him to antagonize Maria, the very person who could have helped him.

Others tend to label this group as The Hyatt 10, the ten members of the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) regime who announced their resignations at the Hyatt Hotel after the 2004 election fraud scandal erupted. That is an unfair label. It is true that members of The Hyatt 10 are part of these hate mongers but there are good persons in The Hyatt 10, like my friend Butch Abad, who are not part of this negativism.

Noynoy Aquino should be wary of these people who already almost derailed his candidacy and have now brought down Mar Roxas. Judging by the numbers, Noy will be dealing with superior opposition numbers in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The last thing Noy needs are people with a talent for creating enemies and turning off people.

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Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com