‘All these talk, therefore, of political love teams involving Mayora Sara with this or that candidate is not only premature, it is in many ways irrelevant.’
I GREW up at a time when the entertainment world was abuzz with the love teams like Manilyn-Janno and Rico-Claudine. A few years earlier, it was the era of Guy-Pip and Vi-Bot, whose rivalry was as legendary as, say, Crispa-Toyota in the early days of the PBA.
Of course, most love teams didn’t last beyond the last movie or TV series, because they were make-believe relationships meant to hook the public into following them and patronizing their live shows and their movies. And the studios were conscious of the life span of some love teams and would break them up and try to link up the stars with other stars in the hope that the new “tambalan” would catch fire and, of course, result in good returns at the box office.
These days it seems the “star” everyone wants to team up with is Sara. Bongbong. Gibo.
Even, potentially, a man named Digong. Sara’s is the wagon everyone seems to wish they could hitch their wagon to, or the star they wish to hitch their own star to. And everyone believes that a team-up between Sara and themselves will be the winning combination that will make the 2022 presidential elections a foregone conclusion.
For the longest time, presidential politics has been about searching for that perfect tandem.
Usually, this means uniting two candidates from different regions of the country: Luzon-Visayas or Luzon-Mindanao, not so much Visayas-Mindanao because the biggest bulk of votes comes from Luzon. That’s why the idea of a Duterte-Marcos alliance combining the votes of the “solid North” with that of Mindanao seems so enticing for some political types.
Politics in the United States has, of course, also been subject to such ticket balancing. It used to be uniting a northerner or north-easterner with a southerner; lately, race has become another basis for selecting the best match. It will be revolutionary, for example, to have Kamala Harris (female, minority) run as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 with, say, a Julian Castro as her running mate (Latino), because the WASPs could get alienated. So Harris might be forced to look for a Caucasian Democrat from the east or south to balance her western origins. Had Joe Kennedy III not failed in his attempt to be the senator from Massachusetts he could have been an example of a good match for Harris.
But back to the Philippine setting.
Even the political opposition is in a similar bind: trying to mix and match their own “stars” to see which could best click.
Leni is from the Bicol region, which like the Ilocos is known to strongly support one of its own. It would be good to match her with someone from Cebu, but there doesn’t seem to be any outstanding opposition figure from there. Someone could also emerge from Mindanao, but who? Others think she will be a good match for Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, while still others say a Leni-Grace ticket may be a good one despite the fact that it will be an all-female ticket.
But there’s one catch in all these match-ups, and it is that the voting in the Philippines is not like watching a movie in the Philippines. Remember: Filipinos can mix and match and vote for a President from party A while choosing a Vice President from party B. And they have done so more often than not since 1986: in 1992 they split their votes by electing Fidel Ramos (who ran with Gov. Emilio Osmeña as his VP) as President and Erap Estrada as Vice (who ran with Danding Cojuangco as his presidential candidate). Six years later, voters chose Estrada over Speaker Joe De Venecia, but chose JDV’s VP, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, over Estrada’s Edgardo Angara. In 2004, voters almost chose Fernando Poe Jr. but were thwarted by “HelloGarci,” but they overwhelmingly chose Noli de Castro as VP. Again six years later voters chose Noynoy Aquino as President but dumped his VP pick, Mar Roxas, in favor of Jejomar Binay.
And finally, in 2016, voters gave Rodrigo Duterte a landslide victory while relegating his official running-mate, Alan Cayetano, to a third place finish, choosing instead Leni Robredo as VP.
So it’s like I go into a movie to watch a love team, but then choose that the leading lady be someone else other than the one being offered by the studio! Naturally, the story will end up different!
All these talk, therefore, of political love teams involving Mayora Sara with this or that candidate is not only premature, it is in many ways irrelevant.
Because if we are to go by history — or at least post-Martial Law history — chances are high that the Filipino in May of 2022 will split his votes and choose a president from one ticket and a vice from another. So it may very well be Sara-Grace being inaugurated in June 2022, or Sara-Isko. Or Leni-Bongbong (wouldn’t that be interesting?) or Leni-Gibo. Heck, it could even very well be Pacquiao-Bong Go, don’t you think?
