On Grace and Nancy, Jack and Chiz

By JOSE BAYANI BAYLON
MALAYA

‘The only way to elect Grace Poe to the Senate was to try to get as many of the FPJ voters in 2004 to vote for her in 2013 as an extension of his failed presidential bid.’

IF the partial and unofficial count of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting is to be believed, then the senators-elect who will be joining the 12 senators not up for election or re-election this year are the following: Grace Poe, returning senators Loren Legarda, Alan Cayetano and Chiz Escudero, Nancy Binay, returning senator Koko Pimentel, Bam Aquino, Sonny Angara, returning senator Sonny Trillanes, Cynthia Villar, JVee Ejercito, and returning senator Greg Honasan.

Interestingly – to me at least – in October of last year I was approached by a friend who was wondering: would I be interested in helping elect a neophyte to the Senate? That neophyte was then-MTRCB chair Grace Poe-Llamanzares. I was intrigued by her decision to accept the invitation to join the race, but I had agreed with my boss not to be too involved in any campaign. So I told my friend that I would just contribute by writing a paper containing my analysis of the electoral landscape someone like Grace was facing.

First, I said that of the 12 slots up for grabs, I would concede six already to the re-electionists Legarda, Escudero, Cayetano, Pimentel, Trillanes and Honasan. It is very rare that a re-electionist senator gets rejected by the voters – and though the six would not necessarily take the first six slots, I argued that counting them as “in” would be best in getting a realistic sense of the chances of a neophyte.

Of the six slots remaining I argued that I would concede four more to those who were from named political families and already occupying elective positions. Thus, I said, Aurora’s Sonny Angara, Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar, San Juan’s JV Ejercito and Cagayan’s Jack Ponce Enrile could be considered shoo-ins for the four.

Then, I said, there was Bam Aquino, and I figured that it would be a total embarrassment to the President if he lost. That meant eleven slots that I would concede already.

Which meant that only one slot was, well, competitive. And for this slot, who were in the running? You had, I said, Rep. Risa Hontiveros. Former senators Richard Gordon, Jamby Madrigal, Jun Magsaysay and Ernesto Maceda. You had Nancy Binay. And of course there was Grace Poe.

But I said that given the fact that at least half of our voters were young, I would think that the younger candidates had the edge over the older ones – which meant Risa and Grace and Nancy over the rest.

So, I argued: the only way to elect Grace Poe to the Senate was to try to get as many of the FPJ voters in 2004 to vote for her in 2013 as an extension of his failed presidential bid. That meant wrapping him around her even as she campaigned on her own merits, which meant running as Grace Poe, FPJ’s daughter. It meant appealing to the younger voters, appealing to those who fought with FPJ against what was perceived to be the excesses of an old regime, appealing to those who wanted a fresh face and fresh political winds.

I submitted that five page paper on October 12, 2012. As I write this I have to admit that I still am getting over the surprise of the elections.

Last Sunday I figured as we prepared to go to the polls that the story of this year’s senatorial elections would be Nancy Binay. Obviously, I missed out on the bigger story, which is Grace Poe’s. But there actually are three stories we can pick, each with seeds in other stories that may have not been as obvious to most of us from the start.

The story of Jack Enrile’s failed Senate bid is, I believe, a combination of many events that transpired AFTER the Corona impeachment. That moment was the high point of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s popularity – he was like George HW Bush after Desert Storm. But remember what happened to Bush after that: his popularity sank as the US economy sank and he was defeated at the polls by Bill Clinton. JPE encountered his own post-Desert Storm headwinds, and it was downhill after that.

It didn’t help that his bio – admittedly a bestseller – became controversial because of his flip-flop on the infamous Wack-Wack ambush that allegedly triggered the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. It didn’t help that he engaged the younger Alan Cayetano in a very personal argument on the Senate floor where – obviously prepared – he fished from his breast pocket a document outlining the debt that the late Rene Cayetano, Alan’s father and Enrile’s former protégé – still owed him. And, as if the nail on the coffin, it didn’t help that Jack’s wild past as a teenager came back to haunt him.

On the other hand, Nancy Binay’s rise was made significant because she seems to have been the one single candidate most targeted by social media critics – ranging from the argument that she was not prepared for the role for lack of a track record, to the more personal and oftentimes below the belt comments about her skin color and all. But the more Nancy was hit, the more she soared in the polls – also a testament to the value of the Binay name as a political entity – apparently the most valuable political name in the UNA group today.

And then there was Grace.

If I were to be asked what I would consider the primary reason for Grace coming in as number one, I’d say it was because the expected number ones imploded towards the end of the campaign in what the public saw as internal bickerings and jockeying for the top spot.

In the case of Chiz, the issue was “internal” to the family of his girlfriend; in the case of Loren and Alan, it was publicly perceived to be an internal fight to one-up the other at the last minute. I myself figured that the issue vs Chiz and the issue between Loren and Alan was instigated by an outsider – perhaps the same one – who was out to derail the top three. And that was what happened indeed. But what no one figured out was that someone else would benefit from it all, and that was Grace.

But why Grace?

Simple: she had no strong detractors and she was acceptable to almost everyone else. So I could imagine Loren’s leaders, whether with her blessings or not, dropping Chiz and Alan but putting in Grace. Chiz’s leaders, also whether with his blessings or not, could have dropped Alan and Loren but kept Grace. And same thing with Alan’s own leaders doing their own thing. So there.

One last point: note that of the top four senators (at least in the partial/unofficial PPCRV count), three were endorsed by the INC (Grace, Loren, Alan) and one wasn’t (Chiz). It would be interesting to analyze this, because obviously if the INC has a bloc vote of some 2.5 million, that would have been enough to make Chiz number one had he also been endorsed.

Still, without the INC endorsement, Chiz on his own can be said to have done fairly well. Why is this important? Because it has major implications for the 2016 race.

But more about 2016 in the days to come! Abangan.