Strange affliction
Everybody is wondering about Mar Roxas and Grace Poe and why neither would give way to the other. Everybody is also wondering why Noynoy Aquino refuses to let go of Poe despite the growing frustration in the Liberal Party and its bigwigs over her playing hard to get. But while everybody is talking about these personalities, no one seems to know what the problem really is.
Well, all three of them -- Roxas, Poe and Aquino -- are afflicted with a condition that is unique to the sons and daughters and grandchildren of former presidents, or presidential aspirants who thought they won and refuse to accept defeat, believing they have been cheated. These presidential progeny strongly believe that the presidency is their heirloom, that they own the exclusive birthright to what their parents or grandparents have achieved.
Aquino has an added affliction, a condition that makes him refuse to take no for an answer. This is why, despite repeated rejections by Poe, Aquino continues to woo her for Roxas. He refuses to see that Poe has plans other than playing second fiddle to Roxas. He refuses to accept the fact that Poe suffers the same condition he had in 2010. He cannot see that Poe has already determined that if a Noynoy Aquino can win in 2010, the more that she can in 2016.
Bongbong Marcos might be added to the picture as another sufferer of the same affliction, although he has tried to be coy about it. Marcos appears to be unwilling to settle for what is concededly a sure reelection to the Senate. He is being goaded by his condition to seek the presidency that his father once held, quite notoriously it may be added, as many would swear.
All of them seem oblivious to the fact that in at least one instance, it has already been shown that such an inordinate desire to seek the presidency that a parent or grandparent once held can end so disastrously. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, daughter of the late president Diosdado Macapagal, was vice president when President Estrada was forced to step down amid allegations of corruption.
Arroyo thus won a shortcut to the presidency. But it was toward the end of the term she inherited from Estrada that the inexplicable syndrome kicked in. Having already promised not to stand for election, Arroyo broke her word and decided to run. To her afflicted mind, being handed the presidency on a silver platter was not honorable enough. It lacked the boasting rights of one who actually wins it in an election. And so in 2004 she ran. And the rest is sullied history.
This is the affliction bugging Roxas and Poe now. Despite scraping the cellar in surveys and an utter lack of charm and appeal, Roxas just cannot be restrained from his resolve to seek the presidency once held by his grandfather Manuel Roxas. Poe, on the other hand, fired by the illusion that his adoptive father Fernando Poe Jr. won in 2004, saw her opportunity to be president herself in the surveys showing her beating both leaders and cellar-dwellers among the presidential wannabes.
Poe is unfazed by her lack of experience and political maturity. Her condition deluded her into thinking, quite naively, that good intentions alone are enough to lead a country. This is the same naivete that led her father to charge the windmill. But of course reality always prevails. As so her father lost. The charge of have been cheated has never been proven. That it was supposed to be in Cebu where he was cheated all the more makes the charge ridiculous and difficult to prove.
Arroyo did not cheat in Cebu. She did not have to. All the local officials were hers. Besides, in a choice between a US-educated economist and a movie star, it was clear where the coveted Cebuano vote would go. That was how Cebu became Arroyo's favorite. It went for her unbidden. Had she cheated in Cebu, she would not have pampered it. You do not reward those you already bought. Arroyo was genuinely pleased with Cebu because Cebu genuinely went for her. And that is the unassailable fact.
Unfortunately, the presidency that Arroyo coveted so badly also ended so badly for her. Wonder how it would turn out for Roxas and Poe and Marcos, although Poe and Marcos have not declared yet. But you can bet they eventually will. They suffer from the presidential pass-on syndrome, remember? That makes Jejomar Binay the only one not born to a president. But behind him an entire family of Binays awaits, who, if he wins, will surely think they own the same entitlement. Oh well.
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