The Sneaky Binay Victory

by JJ Chan

One has to admit, but only a few saw it coming. Mar Roxas did not see it coming. Unexpected, truly unexpected. Yet this is the truth, and the people have spoken. Mayor Jejomar Binay has won the tight Vice-Presidential race over Senator Manuel Roxas.

A few months ago, when Mar sacrificially decided to take the backseat and announced that he would run for the vice-presidency, he became the clear favorite to win. Instead of slugging it out by running for president, Mar gave way to Noynoy Aquino. This was obviously a smart move for Mar, as it was not guaranteed that he would win if he ran for president. By choosing to run for the second most powerful position in the land, Mar suddenly became the favorite. Placing only third or fourth in the presidential surveys, he became the front runner for VP. No one was challenging him, not even Loren Legarda. Mar was Goliath, he dwarfed everyone. No contest at all.

There are three reasons why Mar soared so high. First, people admired the sacrifice that he made by stepping down and giving Noy the limelight. It was a selfless move in the eyes of the people. Second, by running alongside Noy, he knew that the Aquino supporters would support him as well. Aquino’s massive base together with Mar’s base was a winning formula. Third, there was less competition in the race for Vice-President.

Yet what happened? Why did Jojo Binay swiftly overtake Mar Roxas?

If you study closely the movement of the results conducted by both credible survey institutions (SWS and Pulse Asia) during the past few weeks before the May 10 elections, nothing was really wrong with Mar. His standing remained relatively stable with only around a 6% drop. It was Binay who was running like a freight train. The first Binay sighting was during the survey results conducted towards the end of April wherein Roxas dropped 6% while Binay soared by 9%. Legarda on the other hand dropped by 3% from second to third place. This was then followed by the last release of survey results from May 2-3, and it was revealed that Binay (37.2%) already overtook Roxas (37%), while Legarda dropped down to just 13%.

Based on the figures, Mar’s stock remained strong and steady, while Binay was chipping away Legarda’s share of the pie. As Binay was climbing up in the surveys, Legarda was dropping very quickly. In a mathematical equation, an increase in Binay resulted to a decrease in Legarda, while Roxas remained a constant. During this time, it was ironical as Roxas, who wanted Legarda’s stock to drop during the first few months of the campaign, wished that her stock perform otherwise during the final stretch of the campaign inorder to slow down Binay’s surge.

As witnessed throughout the course of the campaign, Legarda’s aggressive and disparaging approach towards her fellow counterparts, especially Roxas, who was sought to be her closest foe during the start of the campaign, has given the people an unfavorable impression of her. This played a huge part in the drastic change of Legarda’s standing. Furthermore, as mentioned by the Philippine Star’s opinion writer, William Esposo, Legarda’s poor performances during presidential forums and debates have heavily pinned her down. The most noticeable was during ABS-CBN’s Vice-Presidential Forum, “Harapan,” where her attempts to attack and challenge Roxas have evidently failed.

The question then would be, why did the bulk of Legarda’s supporters shift to the side of Binay instead of Roxas’s? Well, simply because the Liberal and Nacionalista parties have been considered as strong rivals throughout the whole campaign period, as witnessed by the back and forth attacks on each other. The tandems of Noy-Mar and Villar-Legarda were in comparison to Batman and Joker. Discouraged by her performance, Loren loyalists were not as loyal after all given the quick shifts in support. They did not want to transfer to the “other” camp and so they turned to the next closest alternative and that was Mayor Jejomar Binay, who was then placed number three in the surveys.

Truthfully speaking, Binay was a good alternative. He has an impressive track record, based on how he has transformed Makati into one of the best cities in the country. His reputation as a hardworking and no non-sense politician throughout his mayoral stint in Makati has helped him a lot indeed.

Aside from Binay being the next closest alternative, here comes the emergence of Senator Chiz Escudero. His endorsement of Binay really gave him a huge boost just like how Google’s stock abnormally went up in the stock market.

Chiz has always been a straightforward type of person, someone who speaks his mind, not pretentious, which makes him a credible and believable endorser. When Senator Escudero’s political endorsements for Binay bombarded national television, Legarda supporters immediately saw this as an opening to completely withdraw their already dying support for Loren. This was a wise move by the senator, opting to show his support for Binay through national television, which had a stronger and more effective impact as compared to the usual press conference. Suddenly, Loren supporters all joined the Chiz bandwagon. As a result, the Binay army grew exponentially.

But why didn’t Chiz endorse a Noy-Mar tandem and opted for Noy-Bi instead? According to him, that was his choice. He believed in them. But was that the only reason? Maybe not.

He probably has plans in the 2016 elections. Note that he wanted to run for president but due to lack of funds, he decided to withdraw. He was almost sure that Noy was going to prevail, and supporting him would not hurt as Noy would not be able to run for the presidency anymore as ordered by the constitution. If he supported Noy’s running mate, Mar Roxas, and if he wins, then he would definitely run in 2016 and pose a threat to Chiz. Binay, on the other hand, a close friend of Chiz, would be easier to negotiate with come 2016. Both Binay and Chiz have been die-hard members of the opposition.

Call Mayor Jejomar Binay lucky, but the events that have taken place during the final stretch of the campaign have fortunately gone his way. But then again, in fairness, he definitely has the qualifications to be our next Vice-President. Had Senator Mar known he would be in such an unfavorable position, he would have taken back his embarrassment of Senator Loren during one of their face-offs during ABS-CBN’s Harapan. If he could just take everything back, he would have left Loren alone and not counteract, so as to lessen the blow on Loren’s hasty decline. Then again, this was all unexpected and unpredictable. As I have said, a few only saw it coming.

One of them was Senator Chiz Escudero. He was right after all when he endorsed a NoyBi tandem!