BBM can be a great president

The latest presidential preference survey available, two weeks before the general elections on May 9, is that of MBC-dzRH, taken April 18-19 involving more than 7,500 respondents nationwide. Bongbong Marcos, who has led all prior surveys taken over several months by the country's leading pollsters, maintained his wide lead over second-running Leni Robredo, 52.9 % as against 24.3 %.

If God ignores the bleeding hearts and crocodile tears of Philippine Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and nuns who are unabashedly pro-Leni and allows the survey narrative to run its course without divine intervention, then BBM will win the election with an extremely rare majority vote to become the country's 17th president. If that happens, right off the bat BBM will face probably the toughest choice of his life.

BBM is a Marcos, one of the most hated, reviled, and ostracized names in Philippine history. Many things said about the family are probably true but probably just as many are exaggerations and then some are certainly downright false, outright lies, and mere fabrications. The presidency affords BBM the greatest chance he will ever get to go after his family's tormentors. Or he can use it to redeem, heal, and truly move on.

The problem at this point is that there is really no way of knowing where Bongbong would turn when he reaches very soon that inevitable fork in the road. Will he make a left turn or a right? If God has not given up on the Philippines owing to the shameful and sacrilegious antics of the country's religious and clergy, it is hoped he gives better credence to the prayers of the faithful who truly want to move on from this hateful life.

For the Philippines has suffered long enough under a Marcos syndrome acquired by politicians wishing to build their political fortunes on the historical account of a leader long dead. So effectively spun has been the Marcos-dictatorship-martial law narrative that hardly any politician alive today ever campaigns without some anti-Marcos slogan or strategy spicing up and dictating his or her time on stage.

The irony of it all is that not even the Pope can say with absolute certainty that God, in his infinite wisdom, endless love, and divine mercy, has not long forgiven Marcos his sins while we, here on earth, in our self-righteousness, pride and unforgiving hearts, continue to beat on a dead horse hoping, not for the darn animal to spring back to life, but for our own benefit, one eye on the mirror, hoping God will notice.

And so the national prayer should be, for bishops, priests and nuns, for Leni, for you and me, for everybody, for Bongbong to be guided which turn to take. Because if he makes a turn to the left, not only will it prove beyond any doubt everything that has ever been said about his father and his family but also make his presidency probably the bloodiest, most divisive, destructive, and crippling episode in our history.

But if BBM makes a right turn, and everybody gives him a chance in consideration of the fact that, given the odds he faced, the baggage he carried and the stumbling blocks that littered his path, nothing short of God's will, expressed by the voice of the people through the ballot, could make a Marcos win the presidency again. It has to be God's will if BBM wins.

If he wins and makes a right turn, BBM will make for a great president, if not the greatest. And it will not be because he is armed with the best academic credentials or impelled by the great political genes in his veins. It will be because he will be a fired-up man, eager to set things aright, make amends, heal, unite. He will move forward and be unshackled by old political binds and habits. He will act as if God is on his side.