‘If it was not just a trial
balloon meant to entice
supporters to come out of
the woodwork, remove their Pharmally face shields, and beg SenSAP to stay in the race.’
WITH you in charge, I’m at ease”.
With these words, we are told, a dying Mao Zedong anointed then Chinese premier Hua Guofeng as his successor. Hua was an obscure party leader who rose to prominence very quickly in the mid-70s, with some people speculating that he was Mao’s illegitimate son.
Together with Deng Xiaoping, Hua was a vice premier when the venerable Zhou Enlai died in 1975, and the premiership passed onto Hua as Deng was purged yet again.
A year later Mao himself died, and Hua became chairman of the Communist Party of China and its head of state.
I was trying to imagine a similar scenario in a Philippine setting, with outgoing (endo?)
President Duterte as Mao and SenSAP Bong Go as the “adopted son” Hua. There is no doubt that with SenSAP around the President is at ease; and for the last five years anyone who wanted to convey a message to the President — whether an individual or an industry association — knew the best way to get the message through was to go through SenSAP. If there were rumors that Hua was actually Mao’s son, Filipinos treated SenSAP even more deferentially as they treated the President’s own sons. (But it has also been this very relationship that has left many others wary, ill at ease, or even envious of Bong Go.)
Thus, the idea of a “Bong Go for President/Rodrigo Duterte for Vice” team up that was raised early this year wasn’t a far-fetched idea. And the idea gained traction after the President publicly expressed displeasure at the Marcos-Sara Duterte team-up that seemed to have sidelined SenSAP.
But now, it seems, even SenSAP is throwing in the towel. Yesterday, a holiday, he announced that he was withdrawing from the presidential race because his family was against it. Of course, being a holiday, no one could file the necessary papers, so that has to happen today. If at all. If it was not just a trial balloon meant to entice supporters to come out of the woodwork, remove their Pharmally face shields, and beg SenSAP to stay in the race.
Let’s presume he does stand down. What does it mean? It means that the administration clearly has one candidate left — but someone is also hoping to be the one blessed.
That clear choice would be Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the pretender would be Manila Mayor Isko Moreno. One still has to be wary of some Comelec sleight of hand that could end his presidential bid once and for all; the other still has to be wary of his “softening” supporters who will either make a mad rush to Marcos or to Robredo. One has made no bones of his willingness from Day One to be the anointed of the Duterte administration in the name of electoral victory, while the other has made no bones of his willingness from Day One to sway this way or that in the name of electoral victory.
So, with SenSAP out, for the Duterte world it’s down to a choice of one. And a half.
(Postscript to Hua Guofeng: After Mao died in September of 1976, Hua had to neutralize Mao’s ambitious second wife Jiang Jing and her Gang of Four. To do this he “rehabilitated” Deng Xiaoping in 1977 and soon Jiang Jing and her clique were in jail. Two years later Hua himself was retired and Deng was the paramount leader. The “adopted” son then quietly receded into memory and is hardly remembered these days.)
