The Erap-Binay surge

Except to the Erap fanatics, right from the start the consensus had it that the Erap-Binay pair couldn't put up a fight. A pardoned plunder convict and no longer a yearling, Erap now waddles for a walk, and with Binay not yet a national figure with no magnetic personality, theirs was then a political combo not cut for "winnability".

And so it was… The Erap-Binay tandem long held on to the median rank in poll surveys, as Erap invariably clung to the 17 to 19 percent, and Binay hardly reaching a double figure rating.

After all, many had opined, Filipinos are not that forgiving as regards Erap's past public and private sins, and not forgetful of his ugly past. But Erap still had loyal or die-hard following that also carried Binay along. While pasted to the poll survey midstream, Erap had boasted though that as the May 10, 2010 elections get nearer, he and Jojo should have peaked, fighting neck-and-neck with the rival pair at the top. Many took Erap's braggadocio with a grain of salt.

About a fortnight before the elections, the surveys began to show the Erap-Binay duo picking up, coinciding with the touted booster of Senator Francis Escudero for a Noynoy-Binay mixed or mulatto breed.

But before that, Noynoy consistently towed Villar behind in the presidential race, albeit the margin between them kept varying, with Mar Roxas always topping the VP bets, untouchable even by Loren Legarda who appeared far behind at second. Never did Binay show any indication to figure in the VP rivalry.

And presto, a week or less before May 10, 2010 came the unexpected surprise - Erap always bragged about it - with the Erap-Binay tandem shooing the Villar-Legarda pair to a poor third. Also surprisingly, Binay emerged the leading VP-wannabe as confirmed by the exit polls later. In fact, as of the 90% partial unofficial votes counted, Roxas was behind Binay by at least 800,000 votes, with only about 10% not yet counted.

Research-analyst Vivian Tin projected that in the interim that Binay had 800,000-vote advantage, the uncounted votes totalled 3 to 3.5 million. The 40.5 percent of the counted votes for Binay, against 39.7 percent for Roxas, or a difference of 0.8 percent, is within the statistical margin of error. In short, Roxas appeared a long shot in winning.

The LP spokesmen though, claim to have the ultimate stats as based on their copies of the COCs that Korina's hubby would make it by not less than 200,000 votes over Jojo. Countering such claim, Binay through his spokesman belied a Roxas win, since he has outpointed Roxas in 14 regions including Region 11 (Davao LGUs) where Roxas did poorly; and, that Roxas only took 3 regions (Region 6, Region 7, and barely made it in Region 3).

The Binay camp also belittled the LP reckoning of 5 million uncounted votes and, veers to Vivian Tin's estimate of 3 to 3.5 million. And, in places where the Comelec has ordered random parallel count owing to the glitches and/or bogging down of PCOS and compact flash cards (CFC), Binay is ahead in southern Philippines that Comelec declared under failure of elections.

 Owing to the chaotic conditions during the election and post-election, including the volatile factors in the joint session of Congress to canvass the election results for the President and the Vice-President, a lot of pesky questions have surfaced.

For one, was the full automated system not corrupted by manipulators or operators as now raised by Manuel Morato, and by losing candidates? What caused the sudden surge of Erap and Binay, especially in Mindanao? Was their stock boosted by the automated system manipulator? Granting arguendo that the system was compromised by money, how could the Villar camp be victimized if money be factored? What will be the fate of the poll automation in the next elections three years hence?

In recap, the big difference of more than 5 million for Noynoy is beyond overcoming by Erap. It's the Roxas-Binay thriller that titillates the Filipino gamblers to put their bets and all stakes for one, or the other.

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