‘…I figured that my dinner partner knew that his community desired someone else other than the candidate he desired, and he didn’t want that fact to divide him from his people.’
IF you are a keen student of politics, you should take the time to quiz people about anything and everything related to the political exercise we are going through, always being respectful of their individual choices even as you are unrelenting in asking follow-up questions.
I have found it most instructive to quiz the political type during this season and by that I mean politicians who have cut their teeth in local or national politics and who have witnessed the tides rise and fall for individuals and causes and, in the process, have picked up a lesson or two.
Which they are unselfishly willing to share, sure, if you ask! And I think asking is a skill I possess. Asking nicely.
So the other night I had dinner with the mayor of a large town in Central Philippines. He has been in politics since 1998, the year he first ran as mayor, and he has held that office almost uninterrupted except when term limits required him to give way to his own chosen candidate. But that hiatus was just like a blink of an eye.
I first asked him who, irrespective of his own personal choice, irrespective of his own personal choice, was going to win in his LGU. It took him some ten seconds to reply before he said “BBM.” I laughed and asked him why the noticeable pause and he said, in Filipino “because I am not voting for him.” He then tried to explain why but I cut him off, saying that he didn’t have to explain himself as that was his choice and I respected that.
“Pero hindi rin ako Leni,” he was surprisingly quick to add. Again, he tried to explain but again I cut him off.
“So Isko ka?” I asked and that’s when he nodded but again was quick to comment: “But I will not campaign for him. That’s personal to me. I will make my town a free zone so the people can vote for whomever they want.”
That comment was telling, coming from a mayor who could tell me he could give me half of the town’s votes if I had a party list. Immediately in my head I figured that my dinner partner knew that his community desired someone else other than the candidate he desired, and he didn’t want that fact to divide him from his people.
What mattered, of course, was that he was the mayoralty candidate who would win. And he is in fact a shoo-in.
When I quizzed him about how his town will vote, he said “BBM will win half of all votes, and the rest will divide the other half.” That seems to be in keeping with national surveys, and so his reply did not surprise me. I tried to press further: if he felt that BBM (though not his choice) would win in his town, who did he think would win nationally?
“BBM” was his simple response. “He will get half the vote and the others will divide the other half,” he explained again.
I chose not to press further, enlightened by the realization that sometimes a non-endorsement is actually an endorsement.
