Column: State of the opposition 3: Who leads?

There are many roles, and no shortage of talent, but there is also only one real answer. The last of a three-part opinion series, published in Rappler on September 2, 2022.

The news that former vice president Leni Robredo has been named a Hauser Leader at the Harvard Kennedy School for the coming semester thrilled many of her supporters, but it also deepened the lingering doubt among other supporters that Robredo is not returning to politics.

The prestigious fellowship, aside from being a recognition of exemplary leadership qualities that the famous school wants its students to make their own, gives Robredo the opportunity to spend a few months in academic retreat in the United States. But it is time away, not only from the daily nitty-gritty of establishing Angat Buhay NGO, in her words, as the “largest volunteer center” in the country, but also from the grittier daily work of establishing a viable political opposition. 

This is not to begrudge her the latest of many honors; she surely deserves a break from nine years of unremitting political work. (It is very much a break in the Robredo sense: not a rest from labor, but a break through a different kind of work.) And it is only for about three months.

But the fears about her possibly and finally turning her back on active politics are real, shared—and reasonable. At its most basic, politics really is the art of the possible. But that necessarily practical art is conditioned by intangibles, like momentum and personality and mood and fate. 

Column: Hope and danger in the December survey

Hidden highlights of the latest Pulse Asia poll include a couple of silver linings and a potentially ominous cloud for the opposition. Published in Rappler on January 18, 2022.

Much of the coverage and commentary on the results of the December 2021 Pulse Asia survey centered on the apparent consolidation of the presidential contest between former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Leni Robredo, and on Marcos’ outsize lead.

I would like to focus on two possible sources of cautious optimism, and also one danger signal, for the opposition.

Column: Warning: Trillanes

Opposition stalwart Sonny Trillanes’ baffling display of “performative political puritanism” is undermining opposition leader Leni Robredo. He should stop, and recalibrate. Published today, August 3, 2021.

After another round of sniping at Vice President Leni Robredo last week, former senator Sonny Trillanes issued a lengthy explanation yesterday. The statement is a significant walking-back of his supporters’ more aggressive comments, but it still retains a warning against the leader of the opposition. He said he and his Magdalo group want 1) only Robredo to run as the united opposition candidate for president, 2) either Isko Moreno or Grace Poe to serve as Robredo’s running mate, and 3) Robredo not to ally with “Duterte collaborators” Ping Lacson or Dick Gordon. That he included this last demand as one of the “non-negotiables” or “red lines” is only the most manifest threat.

But Trillanes, whom I respect and who has told me on several occasions that he was working to make a Robredo presidential run happen, is being less than fully forthcoming in his statement. There is a larger context, visible on social media but also audible through the communication lines that connect the political class, that frankly worries me, and I suppose others like me who actually believe in the first premise of Trillanes’ statement: That the “mission” is to ensure the rejection of the Dutertes at the polls. The way Trillanes is acting is undermining both Robredo and that mission.

Column: The opposition’s narrow, viable path

Today’s column answers a question my column raised last week, and which some readers responded to by email. My reading of the situation, in sum: Go early, go big, go local, go—and others will follow. Published on May 25, 2021.

I argued last week that Vice President Leni Robredo “has a narrow but viable path to the presidential palace—if she wants it.” I believe that way forward also applies to the possible presidential candidacy of Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon. Allow me to trace the outline of that path.

As the Danish saying goes, it is, of course, difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. But in August and September 2015 I tried to discern the “path to victory” of four potential presidential candidates: Mar Roxas, Jojo Binay, Grace Poe, and Rody Duterte. The columns were attempts not so much at reading omens as analyzing factors that could spell victory in the May 2016 vote.

The following factors help define that narrow but viable path in 2022:

Column: VP Leni’s crucial pandemic response

Last week’s column continued the occasional series of readings I’ve made of the opposition’s election prospects. Tomorrow’s is yet another in the series. Published on May 18, 2021.

Let me put some order into these thoughts, by numbering them.

1. Vice President Leni Robredo should be the next president of the Philippines.

2. I say this even though, judging from the only credible nationwide survey at the moment, her numbers remain disappointing. The question to which No. 1 is the answer is very particular: Who should succeed President Duterte?

3. The question is not: Who can succeed him? If it were, other names would rank ahead of hers, at this time.

4. But this is not to say that Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno, or Sen. Manny Pacquiao have a lock on the presidency. Robredo has a narrow but viable path to the presidential palace—if she wants it.

Column: Why does the President lie?

Published on June 11, 2019.

Last Friday, he did it again. On a TV show hosted by controversial Christian cult leader Apollo Quiboloy, President Duterte invented new untruths, this time against the outstanding journalist Ellen Tordesillas. He said Tordesillas, the president of Vera Files, was suffering from cancer and asking sources for money.

In fact, Tordesillas has been cancer-free for several years already, and as she said in a straightforward statement, it was her Malaya publisher, Jake Macasaet, who had shouldered her expenses. She never asked her sources for money.

(And those of us who know Ellen know she would never compromise her integrity — not only her integrity as a journalist but as a person — by turning a reporter-source relationship into a transaction.)

These facts are, if not open knowledge, at least easily accessible information to anyone who asks. Why would the President tell such an obvious, easy-to-refute lie?

Column: Senators who can say No to Duterte

Published on March 26, 2019.

With seven weeks before the 2019 midterm elections, opposition candidates continue to face daunting odds—but I wouldn’t go so far as to say, as a friend who took part in many campaigns before has said, that they are irrelevant.

Recent history has proven yet again that many, if not most politicians, are loyal mainly to their own interests; they will change parties, or switch sides, if their self-interests are on the line. Note, for instance, that the Liberal Party won a large plurality (almost 42 percent) of the congressional seats in the 2016 elections; candidate Rodrigo Duterte had very short campaign coattails. Once the extent of his victory was clear, however, many newly elected or reelected politicians were overcome by, shall we say, a sudden clarity of mind. In the country’s election casino, the first rule has always been to get a seat at the table. What the office-holder does after is up to him, or her.

Column: A reality check for the political opposition

Published on September 25, 2018.

Pulse Asia’s recent survey on senatorial preferences, conducted Sept. 1-7, some eight months before the midterm elections, shows that the Senate race is still very much the Duterte administration’s to lose.

Despite the continuing drop in President Duterte’s ratings over three quarters, the electoral situation is reminiscent, not of 2007, when opposition names dominated the list of senatorial preferences, but of 2013, when administration-friendly faces topped the list. And despite the unmistakable public anger over rising prices and worsening conditions, the Senate election math is still stacked against the opposition.

Column: Visit Trillanes; strengthen institutions

Published on September 18, 2018. 

I visited with Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV last Friday. The Senate was nearly empty; even one of the pulldown gates guarding the glass doors of the main entrance had been pulled down, a precaution against Typhoon “Ompong.” It seemed only Senate security and reporters on arrest watch — and the staff of a senator under threat of arrest — were still on duty.

We met in one of the cubicles of his Senate office; he looked none the worse for wear, despite being under virtual siege for almost two weeks. We spoke, for over an hour, mainly about what he called “the mysteries of Philippine politics.”

Column: “After the rallies, what next?”

In which I propose a four-part framework for unified action against Dutertismo. Published on September 26, 2017—but posted only now, in Perugia, Italy, on the fourth day of the International Journalism Festival. (No coincidence that the elements of the framework are based on the active nonviolence approach we learned and practiced during the years of struggle against Ferdinand Marcos.)

The actor Pen Medina* delivered a scorching speech at the Sept. 21 rally in Luneta; he was right to hold to account the so-called “dilawan” for their role in creating an elitist system, but he was wrong to gloss over the militant Left’s participation in the current elite. The truth is: The excessive form of Dutertismo is an attack on our democratic project, on our fundamental Filipino values of fairness and generosity and truth-telling, on our deeply religious culture’s reverence for life — and the Left’s silence on official misogyny, its hypocrisy on the Marcos burial and its failure to fight extrajudicial killings from the start also make it complicit.

But who comes with clean hands to the table of unity? Not even our greatest heroes were free of stain. The people must come together to stop these continuing attacks on life, liberty and the truth that finally sets us free. The objective of this unified action (I wish to be clear) is not ouster; it is to undo the culture of violence, to arrest the drift toward strongman rule, to extract accountability for all the lies, all of which threaten to redefine the Filipino.

In my own view, the most urgent need of the moment is to end the killings. Full stop. We are not, we are better than, a nation of killers.

How do ordinary citizens and conscience-stricken public officers alike resist the violence, the authoritarian tendencies, the lying? Here, the work-in-progress of continuing consultations, is a four-part framework which I find useful, and which I think of by its acronym, SENT.

Column: Trillanes, Honasan most vulnerable now?

A reading that proved to be erroneous, at least in terms of actual election results. Published on April 23, 2013.

The results of the April 13-15 Social Weather Stations survey are in, and for the first time two nonreelectionist candidates for the Senate have broken into the Top 4. The number of survey respondents who said they would vote for Nancy Binay and Cynthia Villar rose from 47 percent in March to 49 percent in April, enough for them to tie for joint 3rd-4th place.

But I would guess that the real story from the April results, from the point of view of the campaigns themselves, is the sharp declines in voter support for the ex-soldiers running for reelection, Antonio Trillanes IV and Gringo Honasan.

(Caveat emptor: As I have done in previous columns, I equate the voter preference of the respondents participating in these surveys with voter support, and assume that these numbers will translate, more or less directly, into actual votes. More qualifications need to be made, but that is the gist of it.)

Column: What are you doing in the Senate, Migz?

Another gratifying inbox-filler, published on July 20, 2010.

In Surabaya, Indonesia, where I did some research over the weekend, we can find one answer to what, for lack of a better term, we can call the “Fall of Bataan Complex.” Someone afflicted with that complex tends to ask: Why do we celebrate our defeats? And tends to add, indignantly: We must be the only country in the world that does that!

Actually, no. In Indonesia, Heroes Day is marked on Nov. 10, the date hallowed by tradition as the start, in 1945, of the Battle of Surabaya. In fact, clashes between the pemuda (youth) and some of the remaining Japanese soldiers, and between the pemuda and the British forces perceived as preparing the way for the return of the Dutch, the former colonial rulers, had been taking place since September. But it was on Nov. 10 that a predominantly British allied force launched a major offensive against the Indonesians. The ensuing battle lasted almost an entire month, with superior Allied resources and discipline proving decisive. But the famous “arek-arek Suroboyo,” the under-equipped, under-trained youth volunteers of Surabaya, fought so fiercely, so valiantly, that no one could any longer doubt, not even the Dutch, that the Indonesians were ready to die for “merdeka.” Surabaya proved to be the beginning of the end.