While many predict Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero kissed his presidential ambitions away after recently bolting the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), history may not be squarely against his move.
The past few presidents who won a publicly acceptable election — in which Gloria cannot be counted, since she grabbed power through a coup d’ etat in 2001 and stole the ballot in 2004 as evidenced by the “Hello Garci” tapes — did so, even as a non- member of a major political bloc.
Instead, the two most recent elected Presidents, Joseph Estrada and Fidel Ramos, whose victory in 1992 is still being disputed, ran under parties they founded.
Of course, in the case of Ramos and his Lakas-Tao party, he had the backing of Corazon Aquino, then sitting President, and the Malacañang resources.
Former President Ferdinand Marcos in his later dictatorial years and Gloria, for her entire term, also relied on party coalitions instead of one or two strong parties to get through with their legislative agendas.
Of course, it takes a lot of effort and financial muscle to build up political alliances but still past experiences will not give Escudero sleepless nights.
What would bedevil Escudero, however, are the deft steps that he should now take to keep his political star shining.
First off would be how to convince the public that he remains a serious presidential contender. Evidently, as young as he is, Escudero is perceived by some quarters as showing the potential of a good leader but not the quality yet for somebody who could move mountains or bring out the multitudes which in recent memory in Philippine politics only Marcos and his rival Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. and Joseph Estrada can be said to possess.
Some are saying that Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III stole the thunder from Chiz when Aquino announced his presidential bid banking mainly on public sentiment for his popular parents. Noynoy’s strategists are also the same ones who were the architects of the two Edsa revolts, the last of which has resulted in the political abomination which is the Gloria administration.
The challenge for Chiz now is to have the public compare his and Noynoy’s capabilities that would surely make him stand out since Aquino does not have any notable achievement in Congress, be it in the House of Representatives or in the Senate.
His next challenge would be to convince financial backers, who seem to be slowly drifting away from his candidacy, that he can rebound from the major detour he made and still bring in the votes come polling time.
Chiz has been consistently in the top three of election surveys until the Liberal Party shift to Noynoy, who started to supposedly top the surveys but only of the Social Weather Stations polls which seem to be custom-made for Noynoy and paid for by the civil socialite backers of the Aquinos.
Still the results of the Noynoy streak are believed to be passing phenomena that would have completely played out before May next year.
The youth remain Chiz’s power base which he needs to nourish since it takes little for the young to change their mind. The youth currently identify with the idealism and boldness of Chiz and the alliances that he would be about to make can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
Another hurdle would be to convince the rest of the more critical voters that his audacity is not recklessness and that he would have the same maturity as the other candidates.
But he would still have funding problems, especially when it comes to the big bucks, and even as his political strategists say he is supported by the Tsinoys, would this then also not be seen as traditional politics and one which he says he shuns?
Also, Chiz needs to do all these within an abbreviated period with him deciding on a crossroad close to the polling period.
His next move may well clinch the direction of his campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment