In the ring

There was such a crush of people during Loren Legarda’s book launch last week: hobnobbing, craning to see, angling to be seen.

Such a crush that I sought sanctuary in a secluded table protected by high-backed seats. By a stroke of good fortune, I found seated there who else but Armida Siguion-Reyna, that bubbly personality who does not parse on her opinions.

Taking full advantage of fortunate happenstance, and knowing fully well how well-connected she was in the high circles of politics, I promptly went about probing her for information. I asked: how many really are running for president?

Armida looked to the ceiling and began to count. Seventeen, she said.

Seventeen! I looked up to the ceiling and began counting myself.

Yes, seventeen, Armida reiterated. Seven opposition, seven administration and three independents.

In the quiet of my own mind, I wondered: if there are 17 people preparing for a presidential run, how could we even distinguish between opposition, administration and independents? What sense is there to clustering 17 aspirants into three categories?

I did not articulate those questions. In a cocktail setting, it would be futile to indulge in semantic hair-splitting.

It was much more satisfying to jump to the inevitable conclusion: If there are all of 17 people preparing for a presidential run, then surely our gracious hostess that evening should be one of them.

Everyone on the table seemed to take that for granted. No need to ask the question explicitly.

Loren’s candidacy seemed inevitable that evening. Some of the big money guys were there, unabashedly. The publicists were there; and energetic young women who kept talking about mobilizing the youth vote using web-based networks. Then there were, across all the colors of the political rainbow, the politicians who all seemed anxious to be counted just in case.

One thing that was not in the air that evening was tentativeness.

With all the volatile alliances and the uncertain prospects of the established political parties, the only way to gauge the unfolding of our politics is to indulge in some political meteorology: check wind direction, measure the compression, take tabs of the atmospherics and pay attention to the ebb and flow sentiments.

When Loren stood to deliver her speech, the media crew scrambled to get everything on record. They were clearly expecting a declaration of candidacy, a rallying call to establish a firm political pole.

But Loren did not pander to expectation. She delivered a speech that was at once coy and, well, politic. She talked about the difficulty of the times and the need to temper partisanship so that we can all focus on what urgently needs to be done.

Yes, of course. Any other utterance would be mangled by adverse public review. Any other thing said would have made her vulnerable to critics who will say she is wildly ambitious and insensitive to the plight of the victims of this difficult time.

We need to fuse text and context to get a full sense of what is being said: this grand event was not organized merely to enable a few hundred people to eat sushi together and wash it down with chardonnay.

This gala was obviously organized to send an unmistakable signal to the people who will initially matter in any major political project. That signal is: Loren’s hat is in the ring.

One would have to be too naïve to say that only a hurriedly assembled book was launched that evening last week. A candidacy was launched — albeit in some deconstructed form.

The clarity of the signal sent by that event was evident in the questions people asked each other in the course of that evening. For instance, my intended French leave was intercepted by five different people representing five different constituencies. All five had one question: are we ready to vote for yet another woman?

To this increasingly standard question a fairly standard reply: Look, two of the three immediately preceding presidents we had were ousted from office. The third completed his term because the tanks were on his side. By contrast, two of two women presidents survived coups and stared down rebellious troops.

So there.

The second most frequently asked question about a Loren candidacy is this: what is her political party?

To that, too, I have formulated a standard instant reply: Look, the surveys show that if elections were held today the two main contenders at the top of the public mind are Noli de Castro and Loren Legarda. What is his political party?

It is time to discard the old parameters of viable candidacies. Throw out that old Soviet era notion that elections are won by machinery, by a disciplined cadre of party faithful moving in lockstep and taking orders that come through some chain of command.

Elections today are won by direct selling. Candidates, like products on the supermarket shelf, must be positioned at eye level. They must be in immediate contact with the voter. This is electoral politics in the Age of Obama.