A lingering dilemma about Gibo

This is just musing aloud that until now, Gibo Teodoro has not overcome as a poor fourth placer among the presidentiables, that is, according to poll surveys by both the SWS and Pulse Asia, the two popular survey outfits hereabouts.

In several on campus mock elections nationwide, and on the performance in various public forums among the presidentiables starting from the initial setto in Cebu, Gibo Teodoro has excelled against the rest. It now seems a given that he is the choice among the youth, students or not, comprising the 18 to 35 age group. And yet, he lags at fourth place in single-digit rank, even much lower than pardoned prisoner Erap whose 18 to 19 survey rating has remained steady.

However, as cited by the Gibo camp, there is another survey group which is obviously of nascent existence, the Campaigns and Image Group (CIG). It allegedly polled lately that Gibo is the leading presidentiable choice of the youth votes within the 18 to 39 age cluster which is almost one-half of the entire 51 million voters.

And so, it's a toss-up between CIG on one hand and the SWS and Pulse Asia, Inc. on the other as to which is credible. Obviously, the SWS and Pulse Asia are better known with many years of experience and better-known heads running their operations. But it does not follow that they are more efficient, accurate, and objective than the still nascent and lesser known CIG pollster. Incidentally, Senator Gordon who also lands near the tail-end of the popularity surveys of SWS and Pulse Asia, Inc. has sued them for damages. At any rate, Gordon shrugs off the reliability of the survey results, except for empty propaganda.

Like Manny Villar's NP intending to concentrate campaign efforts in the Visayas, particularly in Cebu with its 2.5 million voters, Lakas-Kampi of Gibo Teodoro is likewise doing so. With Governor Gwen Garcia's One Cebu Party or the Palabra de Honor bloc, otherwise dubbed as the Governors for Gibo (G4G), Lakas-Kampi is putting their marbles on G4G consisting of 45 governors out of 80 nationwide and about some 80 congressmen who have pledged total support for Gibo.

Governor Gwen who appears as the G4G focal point in leadership is allegedly hounded not only by the alleged dissension in the Garcia family - Winston of GSIS, Byron of the dancing prisoners fame, and mother Ex-Judge Esperanza Garcia - but also by about 30, they say, among town mayors and vice-mayors who are leaning towards Villar. And perhaps, while Gwen's condemnation of lack of palabra de honor had been originally addressed to Rep. Nerissa Soon Ruiz' defection, it could also refer to these 30 LGU executives about to turn themselves into "ettu, Brutte".

There's no question whatsoever that BAR topnotcher Gilbert Teodoro is exceptionally brilliant, and upright physically and morally, very articulate without being a chatter-box, experienced legislator and very efficient former defense minister, and no record or even a hint of corruption in public service. No wonder that the youth and the intelligent voters, especially the young women, are swooning over him wherever he is in the campaign sorties. And yet, in poll surveys he is rooted at No. 9 like a cement post, so far even from the third rating of Erap at 18 or 19.

So what ails Gibo? Is it a failure to blend with the "common tao" who might find him too "matalino" and "magaling" as his campaign cliché projects him to be, but appears stuffy? Or, is it his insistence not to criticize GMA for her serious infractions, unlike Manny Villar who promises to go after GMA, or anybody else in government, for graft and corruption? Definitely, none of these.

Perhaps, as many have opined, that what has ultimately turned off the electorate - especially the independent and apolitical voters - is the "connection" with the administration whose leader has always been at the nadir in popularity, in the never-ending negative retrogression.

 The exodus of "balimbings" from Lakas-Kampi which Gibo himself quit as its chairman, though premised well, is getting brisk and inevitably beyond control. It also appears that most of the "quitters" gravitate to Villar, with a lesser number to Noynoy. Does this augur a Noynoy-Manny finals?

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