Lacson: Steely consistency as a charm

Sen. Panfilo Lacson

(Fifth of a series)

ROMBLON, Romblon, Philippines — The whirring of an approaching helicopter fills the streets of this quaint island-town on the sun-lit morning of April 4, prompting some residents to spill out of their houses and scan the sky.

But a throng is already crowding the narrow M. A. Roxas Street fronting the town hall, eager to greet presidential candidate Sen. Panfilo Lacson, his running mate Senate President Vicente Sotto III, and one of their senatorial candidates, former Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol.

Romblon is the campaigners’ second stop for the day. Because Lacson and Sotto are the first top candidates to visit the province in this election season, and with its people just coming off the long layoff from public gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the excitement is palpable.

The entourage proceeds to the Romblon multipurpose theater, where Lacson and Sotto are to hold their trademark town hall meeting with residents.

Journalists closely trailing the senator in the hustings note how he has tried to project a mix of his old self and a dose of something new in the campaign.

This morning in Romblon, he veers away from his usual deadpan manner and surprises everyone in his team by cracking a joke — his first in a campaign rally.

Aware that he is facing an audience composed mostly of fishers, Lacson tells a story of the fisherman who had three wives, whose deaths all had something to do with a type of fish common in certain Philippine waters — tulingan (mackerel tuna) — and believed to be poisonous if not cooked properly.

“Two of the wives have already died eating tulingan. The third, too, died, because she refused to eat tulingan,” he says, drawing laughter from the crowd.

First time

Lacson, too, seems surprised at himself: “This is the first time that I did this. I never told a joke ever in my lifetime. But I was merely following the mood set by the gentlemen who cracked jokes before me,” he says, referring to Romblon Mayor Gerard Montojo, Piñol, and Sotto.

It seems like he is stepping out of his comfort zone to loosen up, to connect more with his audience.

But his closest allies and members of his staff attest that Lacson has not altered his approach in preparation for his second attempt to become president (his first was in 2004).

In public, behind a white face mask, he is stiff and proper even when greeting potential voters; he is visibly annoyed by the idea of having to pal around or drape an arm around people he comes in contact with.

Little has changed in the man by way of his enigmatic smile, firm tone, unyielding stance, and ever-prompt presence.

Jenny Rose Manalo, a member of Lacson’s close-in communications staff, knows firsthand the consistency and discipline in his personality, which he has presumably carried from his training as a cadet in the Philippine Military Academy, and his years in the Philippine Constabulary and the Philippine National Police.

“He is still never late for an appointment, but also does not show up on time. He always gets [to the venue] ahead of time,” Manalo says. “He lives up to that adage: ‘If you’re on time for an event, you’re already late.’”

Consistency

In his speeches, Lacson repeatedly invokes “consistency” as one of the virtues of his campaign.

He says he has been “consistent” in detesting and rejecting calls for his withdrawal from the race; in the need to uphold integrity as a candidate following his resignation from his party Partido Reporma; in his style of leadership by example, such as during his stint as PNP chief; in the question-and-answer format that he uses in his sorties; in the importance of attending political forums and debates; and in his position on national issues, including how the Philippine government should deal with the territorial threats confronting it in the West Philippine Sea.

“I have always been consistent in this regard—that it is always better for [the Philippines] to have an ally amid the issues of [national] security and external threat,” he said, alluding to the need to maintain close ties with the United States, Japan and Australia and “like-minded” allies in Southeast Asia.

He also takes pride in “consistently” having a mindset parallel to that of his running mate Sotto on issues, including how they will handle guest senatorial candidates.

“We don’t need to talk every day to know what we should say, what’s our dialogue, what’s our script—we have no script,” he once said in their first Meet the Press forum after the launch of the national campaign.

He has faced criticism from all sides of the political spectrum for his supposed unsteady stance on certain issues, even on whether he should side with the administration or the opposition.

But Lacson declares: “I have always been consistent. Fight for what is right, and fight against what is wrong. I have criticized [President Duterte] as early as the time I was chair of the [Senate committee on public order]. I called him out several times. But whatever good that he has done, why should we not praise him?”

Communication skills

According to Piñol, Lacson is taking cues from Mr. Duterte on how the latter has supposedly maintained his charisma through consistency in messaging.

In Lacson’s own words while in a sortie in Midsayap, North Cotabato, late in March: “One time I told President Duterte in jest, ‘Mr. President, if only I can inherit even just half of your communication skills, I would probably win,’ because he is an excellent communicator.”

“That is where we greatly vary because [communication is] one of my weaknesses,” he told reporters.

Like Mr. Duterte, Lacson has tried to talk tough on corruption, vowing to wage a “massive cleansing” of the government in the first 100 days of his presidency.

“My main advocacy is to fix the government; because there’s a lot of fixing that we need to do… We have overregulation, while corruption remains prevalent. I’ve been consistent in this regard,” he once said.

But unlike Mr. Duterte, Lacson promised that his first official act if elected president would be to sign a waiver to open his bank records, “to set the tone of my leadership.”

“There’s no other way. I’ve always maintained the No. 1 problem of this country is government, and the solution is also government,” he said in an interview on Thursday.

At various stages of the campaign, such as when survey results showed him among the tailenders, or when he resigned from Partido Reporma, Lacson has been asked by reporters if his team was considering changing its strategy.

His answer: He was not inclined to change anything.

Kim Henares, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and occasional spokesperson for Lacson’s campaign, says his resignation from the party had certain positive results: “He’s now more relaxed, more sure of himself, because he no longer has to think of the other members and carry the weight of the entire party [as its chair].”

Personal victory

Yet, he is still the same Lacson known to be firm, unsmiling and no-nonsense, who has chosen to ditch the traditional style of employing entertainment and gimmickry in campaign rallies.

“We will not depart or deviate from what we are doing because, come what may, we are able to contribute or educate our voters. After all, this is about the life of our children, our grandchildren, the next generation,” he said.

Lacson, whose term as senator ends in June, has a pragmatic approach to the outcome of the presidential election: that whether he will win or lose, he will consider it a personal victory.

“If we are not appreciated for doing that, then so be it. Let us accept our fate,” he said on Thursday.

But it will be great if he wins, he said, because it would give him the opportunity to extend his service to the Filipino people, which has spanned 51 years.

Lacson’s longtime ally and supporter, former Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, confirmed the senator’s consistency.

“If there is anything that has changed, it is his maturity. He has become more patient,” said Acop, one of the conveners of the Lacson-Sotto Support Group.

Acop said he witnessed how Lacson, facing a group of retired military officers, hesitatingly heeded their clamor for him to seek the presidency again.

Win-win scenario

“He said he wanted to retire, because he’s tired,” Acop recalled. “But he was prevailed upon by his peers, mindful of the enormous problems that the country will face in the coming years after coming off a pandemic.”

Here’s how Acop sees it: Whatever the outcome, it’s a win-win scenario for Lacson. If he loses, he will most likely be spending more time with his family and attending to an upland farm in Silang in his home province of Cavite.

“If he does not win, I won’t say he lost. It is the Filipino nation that loses — we lose the opportunity to have him as our leader,” Acop said.

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