The drag of "Gibo"

My young corporate boss, whose identity I intend to keep by just assigning him the name Sir Johnvic, is a car racing enthusiast. Well, he is a frustrated Schumi but he hopes that someday his son will accomplish for him what he has, thus far, failed to achieve.

My boss man talked to me about “drag”, a term which I remember having met in my high school physics days under Mr. Teodoro Kee. Unfortunately, no matter how good that teacher was, I could not seem to bring myself up to understanding him. I justified that inability of mine to comprehend everything in physics in more ways than one. But, Sir Johnvic simplified the matter. A recent brief discourse about car racing was all that he needed to show to me what drag in car racing is and how important is it to avoid it.

There is drag produced when some outside features of a car prevents the free flow of air. A side mirror, for example, should be made with its backbone a little bit curved because when built flat the air that hits it causes drag.

Aerodynamics it is. Drag slows a racecar. It prevents the car from reaching its top speed. The driver, no matter how talented and skillful, is affected by the drag. While it brings no noticeable effect to an ordinary road user, it spells the difference between winning and losing on the race tracks.

There is an appreciable degree of similarity between car racing and today’s politics. Specifically, let me point out the case presidential candidate, former Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro. In an earlier column and judging from the credentials his election materials reveal, I spoke of his being probably the candidate best prepared for the job. There is no doubt that, as his propaganda spiel says, he has “galing” and “talino” of the kind that most, if not all of his opponents, do not possess.

If there is a talented Schumi in Formula One, Gibo is equally brilliant. The first romped of with so many races before his short-lived retirement because his cars were built without the aerodynamic flaw. But, the political race of the second suffers a heavy drag that it has become doubtful whether, his brilliance notwithstanding, he can achieve what he sets himself out to accomplish.

Since 2005, when Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo went on national television, in connection with the scandalous “Hello Garci” tape, to admit how sorry she was for committing a “lapse in judgment”, her popularity skidded. The passing of years did not restore the kind of dignity president’s should have. Time did not heal the people’s hurt. Well, she could not earn back the respectability because after the odious Garci connection, there were other scams people tied her name to.

It does not take the “talino” of a bar first placer like Gibo to decipher that the fertilizer scam could not be the sole handiwork of a lowly cabinet undersecretary. Ordinary mortals continue to perceive that a high official of the land was the source of the authority with which more than 700 million pesos were siphoned to a political kitty.

One does not have to possess the “galing” of Gibo to calculate that the men who tried to move the ZTE NBN from being a mere concept to a deal almost consummated would not have been so daring were they not given an imprimatur from the highest echelons of government.

These are but two of a long line of perceived corrupt laden undertakings of the present administration. Gibo knows better. Even granting that these perceptions are unfounded, Gibo also knows that in politics, perceptions and truth are synonymous. If Gibo, with all the “galing” and “talino” that he possesses, knows that both the fertilizer scam and the ZTE NBN deal were tainted with corruption, he must have realized that his being the administration bet may prevent him from winning the presidential derby, unless…

Oh, I cannot complete that line above because you are in the best position fill in the blank.