Catching up

All the rivals said they were unfazed by the results of the January survey by pollster Pulse Asia, showing Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his running mate Sara Duterte-Carpio maintaining their commanding lead in the race for the two top posts in the land.

The rivals might take heart in the statement of Pulse Asia president Ronald Holmes, that only about half of that support expressed for the Marcos-Duterte tandem is solid. Meaning, the other half can still change their minds.

So perhaps the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo, who came a far second after Marcos, has a point in noting that the Pulse Asia survey was taken before the impact of Marcos’ avoidance of interviews with seasoned journalists, starting with Jessica Soho. The avoidance gave rise to the trending hashtag “Marcos duwag.”

Holmes told us on OneNews’ “The Chiefs” last Monday night that Robredo’s camp has a point; he said Jessica’s interview was on Jan. 22, already at the tail end of the survey that was taken from Jan. 19 to 24.

The February survey will cover the “BaBackout Muli” period when “BBM” also snubbed the interview organized by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas with some 300 member TV and radio stations.

It will also cover the period when the US Federal Bureau of Investigation released its “wanted” poster for pastor Apollo Quiboloy for sex trafficking. This was a day after Quiboloy endorsed the BBM-Sara UniTeam.

Perhaps by this month’s survey period, there will have been stronger messaging disputing the atrocious lie about a “golden age” during what in fact were the country’s lost years under dictator Ferdinand Marcos, when the Philippines became Asia’s basket case.

* * * One of the groups that commissions surveys by the only other reputable pollster besides Pulse Asia in this country, Social Weather Stations, told us recently that statistically, over a third of Filipino voters remained undecided on their preferences for May.

Ronnie Holmes also told us that going by their previous polling, most Filipino voters make up their minds on their choices only about a month before election day.

Rodrigo Duterte, who started out as a dark horse in the 2016 race, in fact saw his numbers surge at around that point, particularly after that debate in Cebu hosted by TV 5 together with The STAR.

That was when it became clear that the main issues raised against Duterte by his rivals – his human rights record and Dirty Harry approach to fighting crime – were actually his strength, and his appeal to voters.

I remember at the time that a common observation, as Duterte suddenly surged in popularity past erstwhile frontrunner Grace Poe, that truly, a week is a long time in Philippine politics.

Today the contenders still have about 12 weeks to improve their numbers. Black swans aren’t so rare in this country.

As for Tito Sotto, considering the strength of rival Sara Duterte, he should draw on his Eat Bulaga support base and tap even Vico Sotto to help narrow her lead.

* * * What might be useful to remember for the non-administration candidates is that Duterte rose to power on the wings of disunity in the Aquino administration.

Duterte garnered 16.6 million votes – a landslide win. This could have been bested by the combined votes of Noynoy Aquino’s BFF Mar Roxas, who placed second with nearly 9,978,175 votes, and Grace Poe, who got 9.1 million, and even some of the 5.4 million that went to Jejomar Binay, who also had a substantial pro-Aquino constituency.

There were reports that Noynoy Aquino regretted this failure to unite his supporters behind a common candidate for president.

Months before that race, Poe emerged as the frontrunner after forces widely believed to be supporting Roxas succeeded in throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Binay and pulling him down. Aquino then invited Poe and Roxas to a meeting in an effort to forge a common front.

Later, Poe told us at The STAR that the meeting turned out to be more of a pakiramdaman session, with no one suggesting who should give way to whom. They simply waited for whoever would make an offer to slide down, which never came.

Aquino’s reluctance to persuade Roxas to give way to Poe was understandable; it would be the second time that Roxas would have to slide down to the VP race.

Noynoy Aquino ended his presidency with 57 percent satisfaction rating (and 28 percent dissatisfied, for a net of +29) in the SWS survey from June 24 to 27, 2016. The SWS said it was the highest end-of-presidency rating for anyone post-1986: Aquino’s mother Corazon had a net rating of +17, Fidel Ramos got +19, Joseph Estrada +9 and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo the lowest with a below-zero -17.

So Noynoy Aquino’s endorsement was still deemed to be valuable in 2016. After getting the endorsement, however, Roxas launched a heavily negative campaign against all his major rivals.

The consequence, which surely affected even his return bid for the Senate in 2019, must be why the current presidential aspirants have largely refrained from going negative, with nearly everyone saying they prefer to rise on their own merits.

* * * This has worked for Bongbong Marcos, who has the heaviest baggage among all the aspirants but is enjoying buoyancy in the surveys.

It helps that he is the only pro-Duterte candidate, with his rivals splitting the non-administration votes. A common observation is that he could lose in a one-on-one with a single non-administration bet.

Not one among the other aspirants, however, looks ready to give way to anyone.

Even the leftists might want “Marcos 2.0,” since the dictatorship proved to be the best recruiter for the communist insurgency.

So it looks like happy days ahead for BBM-Sara, Imelda Marcos, Apollo Quiboloy, Dennis Uy, Gloria Arroyo and Bong Revilla with the P124.5 million in pork barrel funds that he refuses to return to taxpayers, as well as for the best justices that money can buy.

Since the UniTeam is championing the federalism platform of its party, Charter change is likely in case Marcos wins, with the lifting of term limits that will realize the dictator ’s dream of a president staying in power forever.

From the pandemic into this… we’re headed back to the “glory days” of being Asia’s basket case. The other aspirants must catch up.