Unlamented

Tomorrow, the LP is due to announce the party’s senatorial slate.

The delay in unveiling the final list appears to be the matter of Francis Tolentino. Until last Thursday, the ambitious MMDA chair did seem to be firmly ensconced in the ruling party’s senatorial slate. He was busy shuttling to and fro, giving away used traffic lights to poor municipalities — and, it now turns out, gifting local executives with dancing girls.

Thursday afternoon last week, Tolentino’s political outlook changed dramatically. Photos and video of girls performing rather lewdly in an LP event quickly circulated on social media. Mainstream media picked up the story by early evening.

 By Thursday night, Tolentino’s political future dimmed dramatically.

Citizens were aghast. Women’s groups were outraged. One LP congresswoman demanded Tolentino be purged from the senatorial list. LP bigwigs promised an investigation.

Tolentino compounded his predicament. He lied.

He denied he brought the girls, even as the emcee in that event thanked him for his “gift.” The Playgirl Facebook page showed the dancing girls wearing campaign shirts of Tolentino’s brother. Apparently, the Tolentino brothers were long-time clients of this dancing troupe.

He said they left the venue before the dancing began. Photos from that event showed him with the girls dancing in the background.

The LP soon realized they had a firestorm in their hands. That firestorm could raze their major candidates if it was not contained. The LP bigwigs soon began uttering things Tolentino did not want to hear.

Senate President Drilon asserted Tolentino was not an LP member. House Speaker Belmonte suggested Tolentino might be running by himself for the Senate. Freshly named vice-presidential bet Leni Robredo frowned at the dancing party. Party mouthpiece Egay Erice, impresario of magical surveys, blamed the girls for dancing what they did (although he denies having said exactly that).

When the ruling party assembled to announce their vice-presidential candidate (and, originally, their senatorial ticket), Tolentino was conspicuously absent. He has become a pariah in his own political grouping.

The man must have burned a significant amount of money for his pre-campaign. He maintained a high media profile, even organizing a metro-wide earthquake drill to grab the limelight. He made numerous provincial sorties even as the metropolis was locked in traffic. He used MMDA personnel to distribute his “Tulong Tino” leaflets.

But he fell on his own sword. His frantic and often outlandish effort at visibility backfired. Even before the “twerking” incident, citizens despised the fact he was out politicking instead of attending to his job.

If Tolentino’s political life ends abruptly, his loss will be unlamented. He is the victim of his own crude taste.

He should resign, nevertheless. He has stayed five years too long in that vital post. The metropolitan area has suffered because of that.

We do not want one more day of his incompetence.

VPs

Thus far, we have three declared candidates for president and six declared candidates for vice-president. There has to be an anomaly here.

Six of those nine candidates are sitting senators. With the exception of Senator Bongbong Marcos, the others may simply return to their Senate seats should they lose in the elections. Grace Poe, Francis Escudero, Antonio Trillanes, Alan Cayetano and Gregorio Honasan enjoy senatorial tenure until 2019.

Something should be done about senators who go on long political expeditions without giving up their tenure in the Senate. Otherwise, this unhealthy phenomenon of senators taking long shots at higher elective posts without losing their terms of office will become an epidemic.

Fortunately, there are only two higher elective posts – the presidency and the vice presidency – open for ambitious senators. Otherwise, the upper chamber would be regularly decimated.

Four candidates for the vice presidency (Robredo, Honasan, Trillanes and Escudero) trace their roots to the Bicol region. Cayetano claims to belong to the region by virtue of marriage. Surely, the region’s history of voting tenaciously for their native sons regardless of their politics, their party or their platform is a factor explaining this.

All this phenomenon tells us is that regionalism remains the single most important factor determining voter choices. Traditional voter behavior is alive and well.

There was one election where the Bicol region voted heavily for their four native sons (Joker Arroyo, Kit Tatad, Raul Roco and Greg Honasan) no matter if they belonged to four different parties. All four won. That could happen only because, for senatorial seats, voters may write as many as 12 names.

For the vice presidency, however, voters can write only one name. If the Bicol vote is divided among the four vice presidential contenders, the potency of the region’s tribal vote is lost.

There is every indication Rodrigo Duterte will eventually announce his own presidential bid. When that happens, he will likely enter into some sort of newfangled electoral relationship with Bongbong Marcos. The combination will bring together Marcos’ “solid north” base (plus his mother’s Waray vote) with Duterte’s ballot box strength in Mindanao and the Visayas. That is good addition.

The Mega Manila area, with its high voter density, has an unbroken record of going for the opposition during presidential elections. This is the reason Mar Roxas is doing poorly here.

Should the LP succeed in disqualifying Poe and jailing Binay, the Mega Manila area will look to Duterte. The dictate of unintended consequences will continue to plague the LP’s negative strategy of destroying all other options to clear the way for the party’s uncharismatic presidential bet.

Should a Duterte-Marcos alliance materialize, Cayetano and Trillanes will appear like stray, solitary candidates. They are the oddball politicians of this time.