Shattered bamboo reeds

Do not look at the heavens through a bamboo reed.” Can this Japanese proverb help us sift through the May 13 elections’ mixed bag?   Nobody loses an election here. Those trashed insist they were cheated.

“My supporters and lawyers insist I fight on,” said legislator and  Talisay mayor Eduardo Gullas, 24 hours after the polls closed. “But I concede and wish my opponent all the best.”

After being trounced, Cebu City Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young insisted that their surveys foresaw a 14-percent victory margin. “Survey result is what is the reality.” And who confused actual election tallies with survey guesstimates? Cebu buffed up financial assistance to teachers from P5,000 to P10,000. The teachers were bought, Young  charged.

Nonsense. A hefty dose of Prozac or Zyprexia would jolt Young back to reality. The Villafuertes who’ve dominated Camarines Sur for almost 40 years need that too.

Nelly Villafuerte’s well-funded machine scraped up 31,364 votes. But the wife of Interior Secretary and former Naga Mayor Jesse Robredo racked up 102,694 votes. Like Corazon and Benigno Aquino III, Leni Robredo was badgered by people to run.

Grace Poe shattered the survey crystal bowls when she topped the 2013 senatorial race. Vice President Jejomar Binay suddenly broke into a cold sweat. The Makati kingpin reveled in being touted as “the next president”.  That’d collapse like a pack of cards if Grace Poe ran. Flustered then would be a mild term for Binay—and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas. Both know that history has a replay button

In Makati, Senator-elect Nancy Binay came in third, garnering 165,666 votes. Grace Poe topped the Senate in Binay “heartland”—where control levers  are kept in family hands.

Until Grace Poe emerged, the 2016 contest seemed locked into Binay versus Roxas: “That’s Scylla and Charybdis, that’s a rock and a hard place, that’s the devil and the deep blue sea,” Inquirer’s Conrad de Quiros wrote. We’ve got three years to change things, we’ve got three years to look for an alternative. Otherwise, we won’t be going back to the future. We’ll be rushing forward to the past.”

Some political dynasties who “looked at heavens through a bamboo  reed” have crumbled rapidly, Inquirer’s Solita Monsod notes. That includes the Garcias in Cebu, Fuas in Siquijor, Antoninos in South Cotabato and Jalosjoses in the three Zamboangas. Will they be accountable for past  lapses? No basta  decir  adios. “It ‘s not enough to say goodbye.”

Other dynasties were sapped by partial losses: the Josons in Nueva Ecija, Tañadas in Quezon, Sumulongs in Rizal, Teveses in Negros Oriental,  Dazas in North Samar, Villarosas in Occidental Mindoro, plus Tupases in Iloilo,

Some dynasties are emerging: the Pacquiaos in Sarangani and  Alvarezes in Palawan. In  37 provinces, dynasties still “look at the heavens with a bamboo reed.” But disapproval is rising.

Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu rode a Simba armored personnel carrier, escorted by a military convoy to his proclamation as governor of Maguindanao, reports Mindanews’ Carol Arguillas. Three years back, a Simba also ferried  him  to the oath taking.

No one bitched. Mangudadatu’s wife, sisters, relatives plus 32 journalists from the media were slain on November  2009  in Maguindanao. “It was the worst pre-election violent incident in Philippine history and the worst worldwide in terms of the number of media workers killed in a single incident.”

Mangudadatu’s running mate, Dustin Mastura who ran against Andal Ampatuan, Sr. won 173,111 votes against Ampatuan’s 142,783. “The political foes in 2010 had become allies by 2013.”

A “two-year window of opportunity” to ram through measures to consolidate initial reforms has opened for the administration with it’s 9-3 poll victory, write Romeo Bernardo and Marie Christine Tang for Global Source Partners. Key measures from a new mining law, to completion of the Bangsa Moro peace talks,  have a better chance being enacted. now,

“There’s  little risk of  Aquino becoming a  lame duck president (soon), they note. He should hit the ground running when the new Congress opens….”

“Poverty is the worst form of violence,” Ghandi wrote. Today,  28 out of every 100 Filipinos scrounge below national poverty lines—unchanged over the last six years, says the latest National Statistical Coordination Board data.

About 20percent of  the poorest  get  six percent of total national income. The “upper crust” of 20 percent  corners nearly half of the total national income. You see that in slum families or scrawny kids cadging for a handout. “Children from the poorest households run twice the risk of dying before age 5.”

Aquino’s ace-in-the-hand is unsullied personal integrity. He must harness that as his new team grapples with what historian Barbara Tuchman called the “tyranny of the urgent.” The capacity to govern is sapped by interlocking crises, she wrote. Overwhelmed by today’s demands, “few can plan for tomorrow.”

Filipinos were the first to wage People Power with cell phones. Today, there are 106.9 million cell phones in use. Internet  access is 21 percent—and rising slowly. This audience is monitoring Binay, Roxas—and the new kid on the block: Grace Poe.

What lies ahead?  Banquo wistfully complained to Macbeth: “If you can look into the seeds of time. And say/ Which grain will grow and which will not.”