Politics by ‘deduction’

When you add up what this whole “Christmas gift” issue is all about, it all boils down to the fact that everything is being driven part by vendetta, part by politics and ultimately by political ambition. After all, the two senators embroiled in a bitter word war with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile — Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV — are both seeking reelection this coming May.

Our insiders at the Senate tell us that the plot to discredit Enrile and ultimately oust him was allegedly hatched during the Christmas holidays — the main objective being to launch the re-election bid of the two senators. Political observers also claim that the stinging rebuke issued by Enrile against Trillanes — calling the latter a “coward” and a “fraud” during the height of the Scarborough shoal standoff — sparked the animosity of the younger senator who has clearly made it his personal crusade to remove JPE as Senate President. The former Navy junior officer is hitting right back, making sure the issues he has raised against his senior citizen colleague will stick in the public’s mind, perhaps to gain some political mileage. To his credit, it is actually working — according to informal surveys.

Some people see Trillanes as a political lightweight, which is why Alan Cayetano weighed in — with a political issue that has escalated into the personal — criticizing Enrile’s chief of staff Gigi Reyes whom Cayetano claims is a close friend of the political rival of his wife Lani, the current Taguig mayor. JPE retaliated with his own personal salvo by divulging an alleged P37 million unpaid debt incurred by Alan’s father, the late Senator Rene Cayetano — but this did not register well with many people.

Anyway, this should not come as a surprise. After all, politics is essentially personal. Even in Washington, the personal can become the political and vice versa, seen through policy and legislation where decisions reflect individual relationships or preferences. In fact, in a recent US Senate hearing on the Benghazi fiasco, things turned personal when Republican senators weighed in on Hillary Clinton — considered a frontrunner Democratic Presidential candidate in 2016.

The May 2013 Senatorial race is a narrow field considering that only 12 seats are available for the 16th Congress. Among the current crop of senators, four others are re-electionists like Cayetano and Trillanes: Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero, Gringo Honasan and Koko Pimentel. Loren and Chiz have consistently topped recent senatorial surveys — and their pull among voters is unquestionable judging from the results of previous elections. 

Some are saying that JPE is engaged in a surrogate candidacy with his son and namesake, Jackie, also gunning for a seat in the Senate. Surveys place Jackie at 5 to 6 among senatoriables — something that could potentially undermine the bid of Trillanes who is rated at 8 to 12 along with Honasan, Vice President Jojo Binay’s daughter Nancy, Senator Edong Angara’s son, Sonny and the “come-back-kid senator” Migz Zubiri.

Alan Peter himself has been doing well in surveys at No. 3, and the recent episode with Enrile has sparked a strong interest among kingmakers who are beginning to see in him the makings of a “white knight presidential timber” for 2016. Clearly, they were impressed by Alan’s guts in going head-to-head against a seasoned politician like JPE. But let’s not forget, the Senate President had vowed to campaign against Trillanes, and now, Cayetano has been added into the “S list” of Enrile who, as long as he is Senate President, retains a lot of clout and influence. Which brings everything back to the alleged “oust Enrile” plot that Trillanes has been unabashedly admitting. Certainly, this is as personal as it can get as far as one can see. 

In any case, the gloves are certainly off, and for many political watchers, this could be another exciting political season with everyone going hammer and tongs against each other. Public opinion has been swinging from one end to another, with growing perception that the senatorial race is nothing more than a proxy war between the competing parties for the 2016 presidential elections. Only the election results will tell which one has managed to capture public trust and attention.

The late Amang Rodriguez once said, “Politics is addition” — and this principle has worked on many occasions if one were to go by sheer numbers alone. But with the new Information Age — everything can be summed up as “politics by deduction” — which has nothing to do with a mathematical equation but more on the judgment call of Filipino voters as they make their own deductions and decide who should be re-elected, or chosen as new senators.

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No matter what people may say about Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, no one can argue that he is the consummate political survivor — having overcome many ordeals and trials, from bullies during his elementary days, to the discovery of the Marcos ouster plot down to the time he was removed as Defense Minister by Cory Aquino which many thought was the end of his public career. But Enrile bounced right back, one of only two oppositionists (the other was former president Joseph Estrada) who won in the 1987 Senatorial elections.

The impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona put Manong Johnny at a significant crossroad in our history — and his admirably skillful and firm handling of what could have been a polarizing episode is precisely the reason why our magazine, PeopleAsia, is honoring him with the special “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the much awaited “People of the Year 2012” awards night at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati tomorrow. 

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