Bongbong blew 2016, may have blown 2022 as well

When Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. ran for vice president in 2016, he was actually running for president. To be vice president is to be a mere heartbeat away from the presidency. If something happens to the president, the vice president becomes president. If nothing happens, the vice president is in a perfect position to take the next logical step. Nobody runs for vice president for the vice presidency's sake. Only fools do that, I think.

When Bongbong lost the count to Leni Robredo by a mere, give or take, 250,000 votes, which is just the population of four or five fairly-sized towns in the Philippines, that is not an actual loss but a resounding victory in the context of the favorite political narrative in this country. In this never-ending narrative, the Marcoses are evil and must be resoundingly repudiated. Only the Yellows, to which Robredo belongs, deserve the trust of Filipinos.

In the 2016 elections, the Yellow administration of Noynoy Aquino spared no effort to vilify the Marcos name, actively supported by a few Catholic bishops who thought siding with the Yellows helped prop up their sagging reputation for holiness. With eventual presidential winner Rodrigo Duterte cast in the mold of Marcos, the Yellow-Bishop alliance made 2016 a war between "good and evil".

But with the results of the 2016 elections showing a lopsided victory for Duterte and Bongbong losing by only the skin of his teeth, it was clear that the Marcos bogey as an enduring political narrative in this country has come to an end. The Yellow army can no longer rely on the Marcos bogey to propel themselves to victory. They have to reinvent themselves by telling a different story.

Unfortunately, Bongbong did not understand the dynamics at play in 2016. He wanted none of the substance but the strict formality. He had to be vice president to be vice president, not knowing that he already was in the eyes of many regardless of the count. Losing by just 250,000 from a voting population of more than 50 million tells a lot about who he was in relation to a country that has decided to move on away from the Yellow narrative.

Bongbong forgot that in 2010, he actually won the count for a Senate seat, placing seventh in a race for 12 seats, an incredible feat for a Marcos. In that election, he outranked such Yellow-associated or Yellow-friendly names as Serge Osmeña, Ralph Recto, Tito Sotto, and TG Guingona. Only reel and real superstars like Bong Revilla, Jinggoy Estrada, Miriam Santiago, and Juan Ponce Enrile placed higher, but of course.

The demise of this anti-Marcos narrative was further illustrated in 2019 when Bongbong's sister Imee made it to the Senate, placing, again, an incredible eighth. And the Yellows? None of the eight they fielded won. The anti-Marcos Yellows laid a big fat egg, proving yet once more that the new unfolding story in Philippine politics is that it no longer works to be just Yellow and anti-Marcos.

But Bongbong did not see that in 2016. He had to file a protest. I wrote then that it was dangerous for him to do so. If he won his protest, it proves nothing more than what had already been proven: The Yellows beating a Marcos by a mere 250,000 votes is a victory for Marcos. If he lost the protest, however, as he in fact has, it puts the literal side-by-side with the figurative, thereby putting to question his viability for president in 2022.