Like torture chambers

“Activity in politics also produces eager competition and sharp rivalry.” — John George Nicolay

By Alex P. Vidal

Dick Gordon

Candidates who wound up in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th places in both the senatorial and city council elections must have spent sleepless nights and mental anxiety after the May 13 midterm elections. If they weren’t strong, they could end up in the emergency room.

Aside from the physical, mental, and emotional fatigue they went through during the campaign sorties, the last nail on their coffin was to land in the 13th, 14th and 15 spots and missed victory by the skin of the teeth.

Migz Zubiri

Such was the misfortune that befell on former senators Dick Gordon, Migz Zubiri and Jackie Enrile, who landed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th places, respectively. They may have developed what doctors call as frequent nighttime hot flashes which may be a factor in insomnia.

Their situation — or their mood– probably can be compared to that of a “bagong gising” (newly awakened) that should not be subjected to joke. There is a popular Tagalog saying that “Mag biro ka sa lasing, huwag lang sa bagong gising” (You can mess up with a drunk man but not with a newly awakened man).

Jackie Enrile

Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor’s struggle to overcome the strong competition showed by his rival, Rep. Ferjenel Biron, can be called as Pyrrhic victory. He admitted himself that the recent midterm elections were “the hardest” in all his past electoral battles in the sense that technically, the unofficial campaign started in October 2012.

Because of his limited resources, he said, he was hard-pressed to maintain a colossal campaign “especially that I could not use government money to pay for campaign ads in radio, TV and newspaper.”

If Defensor did not run under the much-vaunted Liberal Party, his margin over the much-prepared and logistically superior Brion would have been minimal. Biron could not parry the powerful Tupas-Defensor-Garin coalition which conspired to ensure he would miss the train to the capitol.

“Pyrrhic victory” is a phrase named after Greek King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War.

After securing the victory, King Pyrrhus was reported to have quip, “Another such victory and we are lost!”
It’s a victory with such a devastating cost that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately lead to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit.

Abel and Cain. The election in Guimaras province can be compared to a dispute between the Biblical Cain and Abel. Who is Cain and who is Abel between Rep. JC Rhaman Nava and the vanquished Gov. Felipe Nava only the people of the island province know.

It appears that supporters of Governor Nava (UNA) if not the governor himself are pinning the blame on the older Congressman Nava (LP) for the governor’s shocking defeat to Buenavista town Mayor Samuel Gumarin (LP) who scored the dramatic upset that saw the defeat for the first time of a Nava candidate.

According to the Book of Genesis, two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel quarreled that resulted in the murder of Abel. Cain was a crop farmer while his younger brother Abel was a shepherd. Cain was the first human born and the first murderer, and Abel was the first human to die. Cain committed the first murder by killing his brother. Exegeses of Genesis 4 by ancient and modern commentators have typically assumed that the motive was jealousy.

Jealousy could not be the main reason for the cold war between the Nava brothers because it was the older Nava who actually gave his younger brother a baptism of fire in politics when the older Nava engineered his younger brother’s victory for governor in 2008 when the older Nava vacated the post to run for congressman.