Red flags in Hugpong
The campaign for senators officially began the other day. Our kind of road-show has hit the proverbial trail. On the day the campaign season opened, television footages featured 13 (?) candidates supposedly backed by Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte and former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo barnstorming Central Luzon.
At least, two political abnormalities, new normal in modern lingo, have begun to shape. First, it is an unfolding new normal that national figures like senators carrying hallowed family names elbow themselves around to get the endorsement of a city mayor. There was a Joseph Estrada who, in 1987, won a seat in the upper chamber. Surviving the Cory Aquino political juggernaut was distinct tribute to the Estrada fame. No Duterte created a ripple then. But, the other day, the hands of two Estrada sons, already senators in their own name, had to be raised by a city mayor supposedly to launch their candidacies! If this is not an abnormality, pray, tell me what it is. Never has it happened in the past that a chief executive of a local government unit goes outside of his (or her, as in this case) perceived territory to tell the people living beyond his (her) sphere of influence to vote for certain candidates. But, of course, the city mayor is a presidential daughter.
In our lifetime, there have been national parties like the Liberal and the Nacionalista, which dominated elections shortly after the Second World War. Raul Manglapus and Manuel Manahan’s PPP, played minor role intermittently. There were no local or regional parties propping up the LP and/or the LP. Then, the KBL of Ferdinand Marcos surged to power only to die after Marcos and cronies were kicked out their positions by the people. If there were local groups, like Pusyon Bisaya, they never became endorsers of national parties. But, the spectacle the other day unfurled an unheard of political strategy that I have to call it an anomaly. A regional party called Hugpong, apparently organized to promote the interests of the residents of a portion of Mindanao, had its top leader rally Luzonians to vote for candidates running under the banner of national parties like PDP-Laban. An added irony was that most of such candidates are from Luzon and the endorser is from Mindanao.
Why the new normal? There has got to be an explanation for this audacious political experiment. A seeming answer somehow creeped to the surface from the broadcast video footages. That was what I figured out. I noticed that the emcee and the candidates themselves, during their turn at the podium, spoke, in an unenigmatic manner, about the next president -- Sara Duterte. The city mayor’s campaigning was not to endorse already popular senators. In the first place, she has no known followers outside of her turf to count on. So, she was there (and will be everywhere for most of the election period) to introduce herself to the voters. This must be the earliest form of campaigning for presidency by someone with no experience in addressing national issues other than being an anointed successor.
In its borrowed time, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan of Marcos grew because the sitting president then nurtured it. Scuttlebutt had it that the party eventually steamrolled the opposition because of resources provided by the Malacañang occupant. Hugpong looks like trying to retrace the historical path of KBL. This early, Hugpong hopes to do two things. It wants to show firstly that its leader has presidential qualities. Well, any ambitious leader, not excluding Sara, has the right to demonstrate the kind of stuff he (she in this instance) is made of. Attending campaign rallies is in that direction although it is not as impactful as when she appeared to have physically assaulted a sheriff in her city.
Secondly, Hugpong tries to establish that its muscle is provided by no less than the president. It follows that whoever shies away from supporting it runs the risk of catching the ire of the country’s number one citizen. I am sure many politicians have considered this although I am not certain that it is the best thing for the country.
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