The coming elections in Angeles City
Despite my personal belief that mayoral candidate Amos Rivera and his council slate are waging an uphill political battle against the well entrenched incumbent Mayor Pogi Lazatin and his ticket, I still wish them the best of luck. Sa totoo lang, If the mayoral race is a basketball game, it is as if Rivera and team is the TNT Tropang Giga and matched against the Milwaukee Bucks. But even in the Bucks team there will be at least three who can be the bench warmer, and maybe four including the one who dropped the ball and committed a deliberate foul by mouthing lines never heard before in Angeles politics. Candidates Alex Caugiran,
Edu Pamintuan, Alex
Indiongco, Alma
Dizon Mercado and
Chris Cortez are waiting on the line.
Earlier, I said there are always combinations in life and in human pursuit. In politics, it is a combination of many.
You have to have money, and it is the most basic. Better if you have so much of it. A name recall, like your grandfather or father were once upon a time public servants, popular in other ways like being in movies, radio or television. In a big city like Angeles where there are more or less two hundred thousand registered voters and still counting. there is likely a big race among those who wanted to land in the first ten spots in the council race.
Surely to be missed in this 2022 elections will be former Vice Mayor Bryan Mathew Nepomuceno. It will be recalled that his political career started as a member of the city council, then becoming a vice mayor. He was the standard bearer in the last elections of ABEKA,a local political party and was pitted against Pogi Lazatin and former Clark International Airport Corporation President Alex Caugiran. Lazatin won convincingly in that three cornered fight and most likely will be reelected for a second term.
One combination that clicked in the 2013 elections was the PAMI group. It was composed then of Edu Pamintuan, Jericho Genaskey Aguas, husband of incumbent Councilor JC Parker and Maricel Morales, the pretty actress and Alex Indiongco . The acronym was taken from the first letter of their family names. It proved to be effective. They all won in 2013 and got big chunks of votes. Morales was temporarily out in 2016 elections. There’s a clamor for her to stage a comeback in the forthcoming 2022 elections, but it seems she wants to devote more time in her business and showbiz career.
Due to the pandemic, the Commission on Elections may prohibit stage meetings and house to house campaigning. Time to maximize technology and Facebook twitter, instagram and viber are the alternatives. Television and commentary programs on prime time radio are still very useful in reaching the grassroot, but they cost money.
The support that Vice President Leni Robredo got nationwide must have surprised her rivals in the 2022 presidential elections. She was described early on using the Tagalog word “kulelat” for lagging behind in presidential surveys. But after she announced her joining the presidential race as an independent using the color pink for the campaign, that color dominated social media for a time and motorcades joined by hundreds
of vehicles were organized in many provinces. The campaign period has not even started.
Noynoy Aquino and Rodrigo Duterte got the same support during their presidential runs in 2010 and 2016. This therefore rattled the other presidential wannabes notably those ranking high in surveys. Isko Moreno was the first to taint Robredo’s candidacy, followed by, to a certain extent, Panfilo Lacson. Their inner circle began downplaying Robredo’s popular support.
The truth is, Robredo’s support has a basis. Wasn’t her win in 2016 a national election? Meaning that she already has a national following before Moreno even thought that he could gain national support even “only”
character wise. Moreno and boxing legend Manny Pacquiao? I say they are not presidentiables in the strictest sense, although strangely some voters have a penchant for voting candidates like them.
The next task for Team Robredo is to harness Robredo’s nationwide support. Team Robredo is no stranger to this because a similar setup happened in Noynoy Aquino’s run in 2010. With Bam Aquino as campaign manager, Robredo’s campaign is in capable hands. What Robredo lacks is support from local government officials. But that would only be icing on the cake. Local government officials can only influence the voters so much.
Remember how Gibo Teodoro lost in Cebu despite the support by local government officials in the province?
Expect the attacks against Robredo to intensify during the election period. This once again tests social media’s resolve to straighten its act. Facebook and the other platforms need to be vigilant against fake news, hate speech and libelous attacks. But this is no longer 2016. People are more conscious now of those things and are more discerning.
As for a possible Marcos Jr. win, I don’t spend time worrying about that. I just put my faith in the majority of voters who are capable of making the right choices. As long as Marcos Jr. is pitted against a legitimate anti-Marcos candidate, he doesn’t usually win. A big chunk of voters have not forgotten their deeds despite the historical revisionism being spread around.