Emerging dilemma for the Liberals

The Liberal Party may have captured the Capitol here in Cebu. But it is out of City Hall. And it may have gained some foothold in some key areas of the province but the May 13 elections did not propel it to where it wanted to be nationwide.

That poses very serious concerns about the ability of the party to position itself going into the 2016 presidential elections. The Liberals need positioning considering that it does not have the strong stand-alone presidential timber in Mar Roxas that Noynoy Aquino was in 2010.

In 2010, the Liberals were merely scattered pebbles on the landscape. But that did not matter because Noynoy had the yellow masses resurrected at Cory Aquino's demise to ride on his march to Malacañang.

After Noynoy won, the ranks of the Liberal Party swelled due to the usual political migration toward the party in power. But the ranks did not swell comfortably enough because of the Binay factor.

Vice President Jojo Binay was the surprise winner in 2010. Well, not really a surprise among the masses that he quietly recruited while the educated focused their attention on Noynoy. All of a sudden, Binay is a much more viable contender for Malacañang in 2016 than Roxas.

The midterm elections last May 13 was supposed to be the Liberals huge leap forward. They had hoped that, with Noynoy still halfway through his term, their own recruitment can proceed just as successfully as well.

But it seems that aside from Cebu, which has for long periods in the past been Liberal anyway, the Liberals failed to gain as much territory and as many warm bodies as it would have wanted to going into 2016.

I do not have the figures in the rest of the Visayas and Mindanao, but in Luzon, the Liberal campaign was all but a debacle. According to a newspaper report, of 22 northern and central Luzon governors, only five are Liberals.

Not only that, of the five Liberal governors, three come from the remote upland, and thus politically insignificant provinces of Kalinga, Abra, and Apayao. Of 46 congressmen from the same north and central Luzon area, only 17 are Liberals.

For whatever indication it may serve, Noynoy even failed to carry the entire 12-man senatorial slate of his Team Pnoy in his own polling precinct in Tarlac City. Comelec records show that in Precinct 175, Nancy Binay, Dick Gordon and Gringo Honasan spoiled Noynoy's dream.

One would have thought that, at the very least, the people voting in his own precinct would have heeded their president's call for a 12-0 shutout of the enemy. But that was not to be. And what makes it even worse is that, of Team Pnoy's nine winners, only one is a Liberal.

And that Liberal was of course none other than Noynoy's own cousin Bam Aquino. What that suggests is that, had Bam Aquino not been Noynoy's cousin, he probably would not have won too in Noynoy's own precinct.

The other Liberals in Team Pnoy who did not win in Noynoy's precinct 175 were Jun Magsaysay and Jamby Madrigal. If Noynoy cannot make the Liberals win even in his own precinct, how can he expect to make the Liberal Party standard-bearer in 2016 win nationwide?

By the way, as an interesting aside, in Tarlac City where Noynoy voted, which is the capital of his home province of Tarlac, his Liberal party candidates for mayor and vice mayor were thoroughly drubbed by the candidates of Lakas, the party of his arch enemy Gloria Arroyo.

Perhaps to console themselves, the Liberals are now toying with the idea of pitting Grace Poe, who unexpectedly topped this year's Senate race, against Binay in 2016. But where would that put Roxas?