Circle the wagons

Next Monday, May 9, exactly a week from today, and with the exception of absentee and overseas voters who have started voting earlier, the majority of the country's 60 million plus voters will be going to the polls to elect the 17th Philippine president. And if all the surveys hold, that person will be Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known to all as BBM, short for Bongbong.

Expected to be elected with him is his running mate, Inday Sara Duterte Carpio, the daughter of the outgoing but immensely popular Rodrigo Roa Duterte. For the elected president and vice president to be on the same team is good for the country. At least teamwork can be expected of them in areas where they share the same vision. In case they disagree, as in reality they must sometimes, they can always talk in private.

It will be a welcome, peaceful, meaningful and productive respite from the kind of partnership President Duterte had with his vice president, Leni Robredo, who coming from a rival political organization, spent almost all of her free talking time, which is to say almost all the time, incessantly questioning and criticizing in public and before the world everything Duterte says and does.

Such propensity to pick a fight is cheap politicking, is never for the country's interests. That Duterte remains hugely popular to his remaining days while Robredo, now in the running in a bid to replace him, continues to consistently languish at a far second to BBM in survey numbers, is a validation of the fact that the country has had enough of cheap politicking, no matter you sugarcoat it with motherhood statements.

BBM, despite being a Marcos and therefore heir and baggage handler to everything negative associated with the name, lords it over Leni in all surveys of note. In fact, with the difference between their ratings even bigger than Leni's actual numbers, no repudiation of confrontational politics is more thorough and resounding than an open-minded assessment of the chasm separating the BBM and Leni campaigns.

What the surveys say is not only the acceptability and appeal of BBM to voters but a whopping rejection of hateful and hypocritical undercurrents that have long swept the Philippines to the doldrums. We cannot move forward if the way is littered with nails, stones and booby traps. Fortunately for the Philippines, its sitting president is a no-nonsense street brawler who knows how to fight and kick behinds.

BBM may not be the fighter that Duterte is, but he has a weight on his shoulder that he wants to be relieved of. Having been on the receiving end of everything including the kitchen sink, he has a lot to prove and even disprove. He will be good because they say he is not. He is not like who the others say they are --rich, intelligent, cultured, sophisticated, learned. He is just BBM, offering himself, warts and all.

He is now in a most enviable position. I shudder to think what Leni might consider doing just to be able to keep within the flying dust of Bongbong's running. For it is truly deflating to eat dust long settled on the ground. So unless God has other plans, it should be all over but the counting. And that being the case, the BBM campaign needs to circle the wagons now.

There is a palpable, nay, screaming desperation sweeping the Robredo camp. The desperate attempt to lure BBM to a debate, direct and overt invitations to bolt and join all indicate a scraping of the bottom of the barrels for some wit's end flash of brilliance or doomsday push to the finish line. BBM and his campaign now need to hedge, push back, protect. Circle the wagons. Daybreak is peeping over the horizon.