“Lito is a hundred percent against anything that promotes any form of artificial birth control. His support of the Catholic Church’s stand is total. Whatever the Bishops say is what Lito himself actually believes.”
by Ducky Paredes
You can write all the rules for having reasonably inexpensive and orderly elections but our wily Pinoy politicos will find loopholes, which they will conveniently use to campaign before the campaign period, to spend more than what is allowed and to break whatever other rules you can think of.
For instance, the rule is that one can campaign only after the campaign period officially begins which is not until sometime in 2010. In addition, violating this rule will disqualify you as a candidate, is that clear?
Yeah? Well, how can a candidate campaign when he is not officially a candidate until he has filed his certificate of candidacy and this has been accepted – signed and sealed — by the Commission on Elections? So how can anyone be accused of campaigning when no one has yet filed for his certificate of candidacy, genius?
Therefore, all those informercials about presidentiables cannot possibly be related to the 2010 presidential elections! All that moving around the countryside and speeches made before every group they can gather cannot possibly be campaigning, right?
The reality of course is that the campaign began long ago and we now find ourselves at the situation where we can begin to assess where we are and why are we where many of us do not want to be. Chief among those assessing their present disturbing situation are the shocked members of the coalesced Lakas-Kampi-CMD parties. They are members of the leading party in the country. Still, each time one asks what will happen to the Lakas-Kampi-CMD if the elections were held today, the answer is that the biggest party in the country will clearly lose.
They chose Secretary of Defense Gilbert Teodoro for a presidential candidate (to be formally announced when they can legally do so which is sometime this week) saying, at the time that the choice was made, that though Gibo’s numbers were unimpressive, they would certainly perk up soon after the announcement that Teodoro would be the coalesced party’s candidate.
Well, it hasn’t happened (not yet, anyhow), which is why many in the Malacanang-supported party are of the mindset that nothing has yet been set in stone. For instance, ads for MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando and Public Works Secretary Jun Ebdane continue to run in newspapers and broadcast media.
As for the rest of the coalesced party, their leader, Gloria Arroyo, recently issued a strange statement. She said that she would be leaving the party soon because she was convinced that she was the cause keeping Gibo’s numbers down.
Wrong signal. If she is leaving, will not her loyal followers also abandon the Lakas-Kampi-CMD? How about the other party leaders, will they also use Gloria’s limp excuse? If they do that, it will only mean greater discord within their party. This will blow their one chance at winning, even as they are the number one and the most powerful political party in this country,
Is it time for the coalesced parties (Lakas-Kampi-CMD) to regroup and re-think their presidential choice? What was wrong with their first decision was that it was the decision of a small clique of party leaders rather than the choice of party members meeting in a convention, the way things like these ought to be decided on.
Why not now hold an open convention?
One man the party seems to have ignored so far is another in Gloria’s cabinet, who is a real performer. He rose, after having been jailed during the Marcos dictatorship, where he was an Assemblyman, by starting off as a Manila barangay tanod to Kagawad to Barangay Chairman; then, Vice Mayor and eventually Mayor of Manila – the only undefeated Mayor of Manila and who has had the largest lead of any elected Manila mayor.
Lito Atienze was a good mayor. His Buhayin ang Maynila program raised city revenue from P2 billion to P8 billion, as attested to by the Commission on Audit’s full-page ads hailing Atienza’s achievements as Mayor. During his terms, too, Lito delivered the services that Manilenos needed – health centers, adequate equipment and facilities in hospitals, free medicines and nutrition programs, free quality education.
Appointed Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, Lito Atienza proved to be among the best. He had the political will to enforce a 40-year old Supreme Court decision that settled the boundaries of the Zobel de Ayala Hacienda in Calatagan; he sued Mayor Ceciron Cawaling of Boracay for environmental abuse, dismantled illegal fishpens and other illegal structures in Manila Bay, established Green Courts for environmental offenses and fined the MWSS, Maynilad and Manila Water for their failure to set up wastewater treatment facilities despite collecting fees for wastewater treatment.
Atienza also simplified DENR regulations and applications to the great delight of local and foreign investors.
In fact, the Asia Research Center cites Atienza for making the DENR the most transparent and accountable government agency.
These achievements are at least at par or are better than those of presidential candidates of the other parties and presidentiables within the administration’s coalition.
Can Atienza bring in more votes than Bayani, Jun or Gibo to the coalesced party? It is hard to say with any great certainty, of course. Clearly, none of them have the drawing power that the presidentiables of the other parties are vaunted to have. What they have (that the other parties do not have) are the loyal votes that, in every election, go to the administration party.
Of those in the Lakas-Kampi-CMD coalition, Lito Atienza has a hidden Ace.
Lito is the only one among the presidentiables who agrees wholeheartedly with the stand of the Catholic bishops on the Reproductive Health Bill. A devout Catholic, unlike the other presidentiables who support the RH Bill or are peripatetic (don’t care any which way) about it, Lito is a hundred percent against anything that promotes any form of artificial birth control. His support of the Catholic Church’s stand is total. Whatever the Bishops say is what Lito himself actually believes.
If he is chosen the Lakas-Kampi-CMD standard bearer, the 2010 elections will have an issue on which political careers will rise or fall depending on the results and where each candidate stood on the RH Bill. Lito Atienza wil surely corner the Catholic vote!
On a personal note, I actually like Gibo; but, he may have erred when he forgot to follow the wisdom of Solomon’s words in the book of Proverbs: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”
This may also be what will eventually determine the final fate of Gibo’s former NPC partymate Senator Chiz Escudero.
As for Secretary Lito Atienza, does he want to be President? Why should he when he has more than a fair chance of winning back the Manila Mayor’s seat if he chooses to contest the election against Mayor Fred Lim and candidate Sonny Razon?
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hvp 11.08.09
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