2013 polls are over, now 2016

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas

With the mid-term elections barely behind us, the attention of Philippine politicians would soon be focused on the presidential elections in 2016. Many political pundits believe that with the overwhelming victory of President Aquino’s Team P-Noy in the senatorial elections, whoever he anoints for the 2016 elections would almost certainly be the next president of the Philippines.

It’s not a foregone conclusion. In fact, the results of the recent elections only showed that Vice President Jejomar Binay remains the strongest contender for the presidency. Although Team P-Noy won convincingly over the candidates of the United Nationalist Alliance, 9-3, by latest unofficial count, one must not forget that post-martial law presidential elections have been won more based on the personality, not on the party or coalition or its platform.

Not to forget, too, that Team P-Noy is a coalition that would almost certainly disintegrate as the 2016 presidential election approaches. It is also noteworthy that the three Senate topnotchers were guest candidates of Team P-Noy, who were also UNA guest candidates until they refused to attend UNA rallies.

Buried in the Team P-Noy landslide was the fact that Binay’s son, Nancy, a political neophyte in every sense of the word, placed an impressive fifth place behind surprise topnotcher Grace Poe and perennial topnotchers Senators Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero and Alan Cayetano.

Poe, of course, carried the magical name of his father, the late actor and presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr., which should give us a clear clue on who really won the 2004 elections. Legarda, Escudero and Cayetano were expected to finish high because they have also topped previous elections and placed consistently in pre-election surveys.

Nancy Binay, on the other hand, was running for a political post for the first time and relied solely on the popularity of his father, just as Benigno S. Aquino III, rose to political heights purely on the iconic names of his parents.

In the same vein, Rep. JV Ejercito Estrada relied mostly on the name of his still popular father, former President Joseph Estrada in securing a respectable 10th place finish in the Senate race. Erap himself proved he was still the man to beat when he defeated incumbent and four-time Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim.

These three victories alone should serve as a warning to pro-Aquino allies not to underestimate the opposition team in 2016, which would clearly be Binay for President and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, the more popular and more political savvy Estrada son, as his running mate.

This early, we can already gauge how the 2016 elections would most likely appear. It is almost cast in stone that Local Government and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas would be the administration party’s standard bearer in 2016. His running mate would have to be as popular as Legarda and Escudero for him to get a good fighting chance. Grace Poe is suddenly a name to watch for that position, but Poe may not ready or may not be too ambitious to run for a higher position in so short a time.

But it is no secret that both Legarda and Escudero have their eyes on the presidency, too, especially now that they have consistently topped surveys and senatorial elections. If the Nationalist People’s Coalition — to which both belonged until Escudero opted to become independent after failing to get the support of businessman Danding Cojuangco in 2010 — regroups to give the presidency a shot, which I believe it will, then an Escudero-Legarda tandem, or vice versa, will be a team to beat.

On the other hand, Legarda and Escudero could also go separate ways and both run for president, with either of them running under either the NPC or the Nacionalista Party, as guest candidate or a turncoat candidate. Remember that Legarda was NP honcho’s Manny Villar running mate in 2010 and could be persuaded by Villar to run as president under the NP.

And then, there is the not-so-secret talk that Sen. Bongbong Marcos, the only son of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, will run for the presidency in 2016. With hundreds of thousands of Marcos loyalists still out there, Bongbong still packs political wallop. He placed seventh in the 2010 senatorial elections, which goes to show that people easily forget.

Being an NP member, he might run under the Nacionalista banner if the Villar camp would embrace him. Or he could opt to revive the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, his father’s disgraced martial law political party, but being an intelligent man, I don’t think he would do that. Of course, he could start his opwn political movement, just as his father did.

We should also not fail to see the relative strength of the independents compared to previous elections. Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn and evangelist Eddie Villanueva were running strong at 18th and 19th places, respectively, and Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Teddy Casino was 22nd. Hagedorn already had almost 5 million votes with only about 43 percent of votes tallied; Villanueva had almost 4 million, and Casino, 2.3 million. The three and other independents can coalesce and put up another front in 2016.

The one thing definite even at this time is that the coalitions that were built for the recent elections would disintegrate in just a few months and that there would be a realignment of forces and a shift of loyalties as 2016 nears.

Some UNA candidates said the campaign has strengthened the bonds among them and that they have pledged to stay together beyond the 2013 elections. There may be some truth to this claim but they may have to draw in new and young blood to really help bring Binay’s popularity to the presidency.

For certain, the LP-led coalition would be gone after it has elected Liberal Party leader Sen. Franklin Drilon to the Senate presidency. It is a very fragile coalition despite its strong finish in the recent election, which can be attributed more to the individual strengths of the candidates rather than to the political agenda it claims to espouse.