Gearing for battle

This early, certain camps are already getting busy preparing for the midterm elections in 2025 and the general elections in 2028.

Non-administration candidates should be doing the same. It’s been over a year since election day – time enough for the tears of defeat to dry, for an end to moping and licking one’s wounds.

As I gradually emerge from pandemic seclusion, a common question I hear during gatherings, even from politically neutral folks, is, what are the non-administration forces doing these days?

I’m referring to “non-administration” instead of the political opposition because many persons identified with the traditional opposition seem to have been gobbled up by 2022’s winning team.

This situation is unhealthy for a democracy, which is weak enough as it is from substandard education, no rule of law, dynasties and the unholy intertwining of family enterprises and political power, and devolution that has created thousands of independent republics at various levels of governance.

Just look at senators allowing themselves to be stampeded into passing the amoeba that is the Maharlika Investment Fund. The way the MIF bill is being railroaded at every step of the way, our worst fears about the Philippine version of Malaysia’s disastrous sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad, are likely to materialize.

Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, demoted to being one of several deputy speakers, said in a lengthy statement (which the Speaker didn’t buy) that the House of Representatives is traditionally supportive of the president, which facilitates the realization of the executive’s legislative agenda.

I guess it doesn’t figure in this equation that the impeachment of an erring president and the heads of constitutional bodies for betrayal of public trust emanates from the House.

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GMA said it’s the Senate that is expected to provide the checks and balances to the executive (and its House rubberstamp). It doesn’t look this way though when it comes to Maharlika. Sen. Migz Zubiri seems focused on keeping his post as Senate president first and asking questions later.

We’ve heard some voices of reason notably from Senators Chiz Escudero, Win Gatchalian, Joel Villanueva and even Bato dela Rosa, and of course the opposition stalwarts – all two of them – Risa Hontiveros and Koko Pimentel.

It’s disheartening that lawmakers are prepared to take billions of pesos in precious public funds (and possibly our pension money) into the unknown amid warnings of a fiscal collapse aired by the biggest proponent of the MIF, the head of Marcos 2.0’s economic team, Benjamin Diokno.

The widespread suspicion, and not just in financial circles, is that Diokno wants to run the MIF – which stands to be the highest paid post in government, topping even the salary of the central bank governor – and have control over the country’s entire financial system.

We all know what happens when someone is given that kind of power in this land of kanya-kanya, of me and family first before country, God, the greater good and all that motherhood whatnot.

A healthy system of checks and balances is needed to keep this from happening. This is challenging when a genuine political opposition is nearly non-existent.

The so-called pinklawan opposition mustered 15 million votes in 2022. Another 7.1 million went for other candidates not aligned with the UniTeam. That’s over 22 million voters – nothing to sneeze at.

Even within the original winning team, there are certain segments that can be wooed to switch alliances. The suitors must appeal to enlightened self-interest in winning people over.

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Non-administration forces might want to watch the Netflix K-drama “Queenmaker” for tips on running an election campaign in a corrupted political environment with endless backstabbing.

Beyond the cinematic exaggerations, “Queenmaker” offers useful tips for campaigning in a race where there is extensive use of troll farms and disinformation on multiple media platforms. These have become realities in elections in the digital age and mastering their use is critical in any campaign. We saw the spectacular results for the UniTeam in 2022, when the opposition and non-administration camps in 2022 were stuck in 1986 campaign mode.

Pulse Asia president Ronald Holmes told “The Chiefs” on One News recently that long before the victory of Marcos 2.0, the so-called yellow forces, for example, failed to adequately address baseless criticisms against Noynoy Aquino’s administration, or counter efforts to portray it as lacking in accomplishments.

“Queenmaker” portrays the latest ways of responding to such assaults. They mostly boil down to: when there are multiple sources of information with opposite takes on the same subject, you need an aggressive effort to make voters know better, to be discerning enough to recognize the truth. Such efforts are needed even in high-income South Korea, which has one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

We’re copying so many things Korean these days, including their pop music and styling for the performers. We might as well learn something useful from K-dramas.

The spectacular return to power of the Marcoses was several decades in the making; Ferdinand Junior himself has indicated as much.

Seeing what’s happening with the Maharlika fund, the country urgently needs a strong, credible segment that can check the abuses and excesses of the administration. Especially since it’s becoming increasingly clear that those in power intend to maintain their hold on it beyond 2028.

Shortly after the victory of the UniTeam became official last year, a Marcos relative gushed that not in his wildest dreams did he see Ferdinand Marcos Junior becoming president.

The lesson for non-administration forces is, if the Marcoses could stage this stunning comeback, anything is possible in Philippine politics. But they must be organized; they need a strategy. They must be prepared for battle – whether it’s trench warfare or close quarters combat.