From Ocho Derecho to Cinco Sana?

In an unusual move by a major political party, the Liberal Party nominated three of its members and two guest candidates to its senate slate for the 2022 general election even before it can name its standard-bearers. Normally, a party picks its presidential and vice presidential candidates before naming the rest of its tickets. Head before the tail, you know. Horse before the cart.

But apparently these are not the best of times for the Liberal Party. It is not its usual self. It is still pretty loud and noisy, of course, but it does not seem to have the bite behind its bark. Vice President Leni Robredo, the main presidential hope of the party, continues to hem and haw over whether to run or not, a slow and dragging dance of indecision that has stretched for the entirety of her term.

So while Leni continues to grope for the itch she could not scratch, her party had to go ahead and wiggle its toes if only to show it is not dead. It is not easy, after all, for a major political player to lay a big fat egg in its last attempt to flex its muscles, the 2019 midterm elections. In that disastrous political outing, which it boastfully described as a referendum on arch-enemy President Rodrigo Duterte, its entire senate slate got massacred.

That senate slate was called Ocho Derecho. It was a bold name that just did not bear the fruit it desired from the tree. The fact that it failed to complete a 12-man lineup should already have given it some inkling that sometimes it does pay to be humble. And so, Ocho Derecho it was, straight to the slaughterhouse. The LP spoiled for a referendum, and a deafening referendum it got. Ocho Zero.

The highest-ranked member of Ocho Derecho was then-reelectionist Bam Aquino. He could only manage 14th place. Bar topnotcher and former solicitor general Florin Hilbay, who I have read tells his students that if a certain Larry Gadon can pass the Bar, there is no reason they cannot, placed 29th in that same election. Guess who beat Hilbay providently at 28th place? A certain lawyer named Larry Gadon!

Now the Liberal Party is facing another test, nay challenge. As of this writing, 8 a.m. or thereabouts, Thursday, September 30, 2021, it still has no presidential and vice presidential candidates. And from just eight senate bets in 2019, it is now down to just five. And of the five, only three are Liberals, the two others being just guests.

For whatever it's worth, here are the five: Bam Aquino (LP), Leila de Lima (LP), Francis Pangilinan (LP), Chel Diokno (Independent), and Risa Hontiveros (Akbayan). Of course, it is possible for the LP to eventually add more candidates, even complete an entire 12-man lineup. After all today is still the start of the official filing of certificates of candidacy. Today is when the real reckoning for final decisions starts.

A bit of unsolicited advice for this team: It should try to reinvent and reinvest itself if it truly intends to test the pulse of the nation in a real election, not just in an opinion poll. The team must remember that in the anti-Marcos-cum-Duterte referendum campaign it waged in 2019, Aquino lost at 14th place and Diokno at 21st. Duterte boys Bong Go and Bato de la Rosa won big at 3rd and 5th, respectively. Imee Marcos was at a very high No. 8.

For there is now a new narrative that is seizing the consciousness of the nation. It is the narrative muffled, stifled, and hushed for too long by the loud and vociferous few. It is the fair and factual tale told by the vast but silent majority who lived through the Philippine experience, saw it with eyes that did not forget, felt it with hearts in the right places and stood for what they believed in with feet on the ground. It is the voice to hear in 2022.