Noynoy is digging a hole he can't climb out of!

Call it counting the eggs before they hatch! I don’t know what made the ruling Lakas-Kampi party through Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano say that they would field Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) as Speaker of the House when Congress convenes next July. Is the elections done already? Is he telling the Filipino people that after the May 2010 elections the Lakas-Kampi would still be the dominant party? Call it insolence on the part of the majority party, but these are things that don’t need to be said while they are still campaigning for votes in the coming May elections!

Right now, even the Lakas-Kampi does not even have a complete slate in the Senate. I’m sure that their incumbent Congressmen have a better chance in winning their seats, however informing the electorate ahead of what the Lakas-Kampi would do when the new Congress convenes only shows how rude the ruling partymates have become. They probably do not realize that GMA is so unpopular. It may become the reason that Lakas-Kampi bets might lose their election or re-election bids. For their sakes, I hope that they were misquoted as usually the case.

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If there is anyone having a difficult time in getting his ratings up because he has been tagged as the man of the President, it is former Sec. Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. Everytime he attends a tv or a school forum, this question is always thrown at him, that he is GMA’s lackey. But because he is highly-intelligent, he is able to parry those questions, to the understanding of the people asking the question.

When I got back home last Sunday, I was taken aback by the front page headlines of The Freeman that Gibo won the mock polls in Ateneo, something that even Ateneans were taken by surprise; after all, it is Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III whom the Ateneans should support as he is considered one of their own. While the margin of Gibo was very small, it speaks volumes of the independence of the youth today. It would have been easy for Noynoy to bag the votes of his fellow schoolmates by merely stating that they should vote for their own. But obviously the youth today cannot be told whom to vote for and it seems that they have chosen well!

In my three days in Clark and my weekend in Metro Manila, I was able to talk to the taxi drivers about their Presidential candidates and it seems that it is a toss up between Noynoy and former Pres. Joseph “Erap” Estrada. Most of them gravitate towards Erap as they apparently believe that Noynoy really had no performance to show to them plus the fact that the Hacienda Luisita issue is still a hot one. Gibo is a poor 3rd in their list of choices.

In fact, last week, text messages surfaced from that news item last week which reported that Noynoy would distribute the Hacienda Luisita within five years. The texters had a field day and forwarded this message: “According to Noynoy, he will distribute Hacienda Luisita five years from now. So the farmers welcomed this move and responded by telling Noynoy that he shouldn’t run now as they would only vote for him five years from now.”

Call it a cruel joke if you want, but Noynoy can only blame himself for putting his foot in his mouth! First of all, when many times in the past he was asked about the Hacienda Luisita, Noynoy insisted that his family was a very small, insignificant minority shareholder there. Yet he makes that declaration in distributing the Hacienda Luisita as if he were a major stockholder? So what is really the score? Is he a major stockholder or a minority stockholder in that company? If indeed he is a major stockholder, why wait for five years to distribute the land? If he is a minority shareholder, how can he claim that he could distribute this land in five years?

Poor Noynoy, he has dug a hole he can’t climb out of! As Business Mirror columnist and radio talkshow host Butch del Castillo said in his column last Jan.22: “And what about the “star” of the show, Noynoy Aquino? Every time he opens his mouth, he loses votes, I always say in my Monday-to-Friday radio program. You can count on him to self-destruct, fizzle out, go kaput in the end. I believe he doesn’t have the fundamentals—but this is the rub—he is still the survey front-runner at this point. All I can say is, poor Philippines, what grievous sin have we committed to deserve him?”

Indeed, since Noynoy got a high of 60 percent in the first surveys, he has steadily nose-dived. All he needs is a runway to land on. I’m sure that the Liberal Party (LP) knows this too well and is finding ways to change tactics or shift gears for Noynoy. But before they do so, they are waiting for the coming 24th anniversary of the EDSA Revolt on Feb. 22 next week which they would certainly exploit to restart or rekindle the fast waning Cory Magic. If Noynoy’s ratings won’t spring back, then he’s in real trouble!