| EDITORIAL |
 |
| Click to enlarge |
What most politicians fear most, which is to lose their wind in the homestretch while seeing at the corner of their eyes, the one they dismissed long ago as an also ran bringing the rear fast, is happening to both Liberal Party (LP) bet Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino and Nacionalista Party (NP) candidate Manuel Villar Jr.
In the latest Pulse Asia survey former President Joseph Estrada was shown making a dash based on the presidential preference three months into the elections gaining six percentage points putting him within striking distance of Aquino and Villar who both suffered lower ratings from the previous survey in January, if one goes by what the surveys claim.
Estrada’s gain came after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Supreme Court (SC) cleared all legal obstacles on Estrada’s run last January, said one Estrada supporter.
What appeared in the latest survey was perhaps that which many of those who doubted Estrada could pursue a new presidential bid, have started to shift their support to him from the other candidates after being assured that their votes on Erap would not be wasted.
The gain was most prominent in Mindanao where the gain was an impressive nine percentage points, but Estrada always had a stronghold in Mindanao. What was strange was the fact that the earlier surveys made him look weak in this region.
Going by the survey numbers, the gains, however, were all over with preference for Erap advancing three points to 17 percent in the National Capital Region (NCR), seven points to 16 percent in Luzon and two points to eight percent in the Visayas region.
Comparatively, Aquino fell two points in NCR, fell four points in Luzon, another two points in Visayas and gained five points in Mindanao based on the comparison of the latest survey with the previous month’s.
Villar is also facing an overall downtrend after being flat in NCR and the Visayas while falling five points and a huge 17-point plunge in Mindanao between the February and January surveys.
Also, Estrada was only able to start a decent campaign after the January SC and Comelec decisions, the reason for his preference to start to peak.
In the world of sports, protagonists of a competition pace themselves and try to find their peak just around the crucial day of competition.
With the analogy, it seems that both Aquino and Villar are peaking too early and the vicious mud-slinging between both camps in the past few months featuring ironically similar allegations of profiting improperly from multimillion-dollar road projects may have saturated the public enough to start to doubt their having presidential qualities.
It does not need pointing out that the political shades of both camps, when it comes down to their backgrounds, do not differ much.
Both have the vestiges of the disgraced Edsa II power grab that robbed Estrada of the presidency in 2001.
The civil socialites that led the military-backed takeover are now the political base of Aquino while many of the former supporters of Gloria have jumped ship to join Villar’s camp.
Thus, between Aquino and Villar the choice is the arrogant lot of the civil socialites reclaiming power or what many see as a status quo if Villar becomes president.
Estrada may offer the only real alternative of returning the government to the masses.
Even with the recent poll showing Estrada gaining fast, real public sentiment is hardly reflected in the surveys since these do not systematically reflect the real extent of Estrada’s strength, and that is with the poor.
Estrada it seems, will be springing surprises as the elections near with probably the biggest surprise likely happening on May 10 — as the Estrada strength can be palpably felt on the ground, but still not quite reflected in these so-called pulse of the electorate surveys.
No comments:
Post a Comment