Is Grace Poe like Hillary, Binay like Mahathir, Duterte like Putin with humor (not Trump!), Mar like Gibo & Miriam like Salonga?

When the Diliman Book Club invited me to speak about analyzing our upcoming May 9 election, I told them that election politics here have become as exciting as the NBA Finals are to the US, football games to Europe, and possibly as melodramatic as telenovelas are to Latin America. Let me share some of their questions and my replies.

• Is former presidential race front-runner Senator Grace Poe weak or prone to manipulation by others as some allege? Is she too inexperienced to become the next leader? Will former American citizen Poe be a puppet of the US?

I think it is wrong to underestimate the strength of character and political astuteness of Senator Grace Poe who could still engineer a win on May 9. She reminds me of US Senator Hillary Clinton in steely personality. I think Grace Poe is a friendlier version of Hillary, but no less strong. Her win as president would surely boost the Philippine economy, because she seems more ready to govern the country than even Senator Noynoy C. Aquino was in 2010.

As to her sliding down to second place in surveys, I told her and running mate Senator Chiz Escudero (when he recently guested for the second time at Kamuning Bakery Café’s Pandesal Forum) that there seems to be a wave of anti-government sentiment due to a perceived breakdown in public services, peace and order, and the lack of trickle-down effects to the people from government’s much-vaunted high economic growth, so lots of voters seem to favor the opposites of the current leadership personified by Duterte and vice presidential bet Senator Bongbong Marcos.

I believe Senator Grace Poe is her own person, truly independent from the yellow politics of her friend, outgoing President Noynoy C. Aquino, as evidenced by her publicly acknowledging the infrastructure and socio-economic achievements of the controversial late President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

It is unfair for detractors to oversimplify Poe as a pro-American stooge just because she once studied, lived and worked in the US or held an American passport. I believe she is pro-Philippines and would neither be blindly pro-American nor anti-American. In the same way, it would have been wrong to assume that Dr. Jose Rizal, painter Juan Luna and General Antonio Luna would be pro-Spain stooges just because they studied, worked and lived in Spain. 

• Is Vice President Jojo Binay a bad leader because he has repeatedly been accused by political foes of corruption? Is he already a spent political force after losing his former top position in the surveys?

The self-made man and VP is one of the most hardworking, efficient and smartest politicians I have ever met. He is one leader nobody should underestimate or write off as lost before election day, because he is politically savvy, determined and persevering like no other person I can mention.

As to alleged corruption, I think VP Binay, if elected, could become like Malaysia’s former leader Mahathir Mohamad who was hounded nonstop by corruption charges, yet decisively modernized the Malaysian economy and helped lift the masses out of abject poverty.

• Is Davao Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte an unpredictable leader? Is he like the wild and crazy Donald Trump of the US?

I think it is more apt to compare the legendary Mayor Digong Duterte to the iron-fisted nationalist President Vladimir Putin of Russia than to Trump. Duterte is like Putin with a better sense of humor. He has a solid record as leader of Davao City.

It is my reckoning that the anti-establishment Digong Duterte is really smarter, more well-behaved and more well-educated than we sometimes hear, that all his shockingly wild, crude public statements and so-called “gutter language” are part of his clever marketing strategies for TV sound-bytes, also to shock and awe a public already sick and tired of packaged politicos.

Duterte actually reminds me of another political genius ex-president and now Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada, whom the socio-economic and intellectual elites detested even while he was adored by the masses. Before his landslide election victory, the Catholic bishops even issued a statement in churches to “Vote for anyone but Erap” and this was the banner headline news of a major newspaper on election day. Erap claimed to have poor command of the English language, but when he was detained in 2001 at Veterans Memorial Medical Center, I was the first journalist to bag an exclusive three-hour interview with him, and he floored me with his flawless command of the English language!

• Why is former DILG Secretary Mar Roxas, the ruling party’s candidate, always lagging in surveys? Is he like Gibo Teodoro?

I think ruling party presidential bet ex-Secretary Mar Roxas is similar in some respects to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s 2010 ruling party bet former Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro, though they have different personalities and their own unique strengths. I also believe that both Wharton-educated Mar and Harvard-trained Gibo are sincere in their sense of noblesse oblige, the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged.

One way Mar could edge out other presidentiables is to distinguish himself from his election rivals, reminding voters that he is the only former investment banker and former economics expert. This is a better selling point than the “Tuwid na Daan” tagline.

Mar is not in a Gibo Teodoro situation. Mar has the advantage of being the boss of the ruling Liberal Party over the past six years, since President Noynoy Aquino is perceived to be less hands-on as the party’s head, so Mar seems to command more financial, political and other resources that Gibo Teodoro didn’t have in 2010. How can harnessing the LP political machinery and resources make a difference on May 9? This depends on how Mar narrows the gap between himself and his rivals in the surveys.

• What about the fate of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago?

I believe voters should still consider the intellectual giant and nationalist leader Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago for president, despite her frail health. I admire her indomitable spirit, although I honestly feel she’d have the same fate as the eminently qualified but similarly resource-poor former Senate President Jovito R. Salonga when he ran for president in 1992. 

Miriam now, and Salonga before, topped mock elections in top universities nationwide. When will the collective wisdom of the nation’s best-educated and idealistic youth coincide with the popular will?

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