NOYNOY-MAR TANDEM EQUALS DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANCHA

By ROGER M. BALANZA

 It was no surprise that Sen. Noynoy Aquino picked Sen. Mar Roxas  as his running mate after the heavens told him to take a crack at the presidency in 2010 as standard bearer of the Liberal Party.

It was a given that Mar would be second fiddle to Noynoy. After all Mar had given up his own presidential bid.

If there was a little bit of a drama in Noynoy’s pick of Mar, it did not mean the heavens told Noynoy to get Mar after a day of soul searching in a convent with nuns. As we said it was a given, Mar already having did what many called as “statesmanship of the highest form” by sliding down to the vice presidency.

NOYNOY&MAR: In for futile battle vs. administration machinery

Not divine providence

          If it was heaven’s wish that Noynoy should tandem with Mar, that divine message is not heard on the ground.

Right now, Liberal Party stalwarts and in the other opposition parties are uneasy at the pairing with some openly thumbing down the Noynoy-Mar tandem.

 The Noynoy-Mar team in fact may have already shut down efforts to unify the opposition, the senators being both from Liberal Party thus giving no room for other opposition parties to get one of the two top posts at stake in the coming polls.

 Dis-unification

Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay who heads the United Opposition, says:  “The big problem here is Mar … You’re not talking already of a coalition because Mar and Noynoy would come from the same party.” So how can they unite the opposition?

According to Binay, the logic of political concessions that firms up coalitions should have been considered. In the simplest of definitions, this means Mar should not have been the vice presidential pick, the post to go to any nominee of the other opposition parties.

Of course, Noynoy and Mar may have personal agenda that fit their own political motivations. One of these is the belief that they could stand alone without the others from the opposition in the battle against the candidates of President GMA. This would make Nonoy a Don Quixote and Mar a Sancho Pansa against the formidable machinery of the administration. The battle cry now is coalition and unification of all political parties. Noynoy and Mar, who would not accept this idea, would be denying the people their only chance for change in the coming polls.

If Mar is really bent on saving this nation, he should not make a go at being Noynoy’s running mate, for the sake of a unified opposition.

Total disaster

The purely Liberal Party tandem of Noynoy and Mar in fact could be a complete and total disaster, if we listen to seasoned political analysts, who have been there.

Political analyst and columnist Lito Banayo, the presidential adviser on political affairs of then President Erap, said the presidency will not be a walk in the park for Noynoy, especially if he will not go beyond the LP in forming an opposition coalition.

“The Liberal Party has no infrastructure in Mindanao… He cannot rely only on the LP. He needs more vehicles. He needs to unite the opposition minus Erap and Villar,” Banayo in his column.

          If Mar would not give way to allow the other opposition parties to choose their vice presidential nominees, we expect him and Noynoy to sink down together into perdition in the coming polls.

 Elitist

The Noynoy-Mar tandem is too elitist, according to other observers, making it difficult for the opposition to touch base with the masang pipol.

The other side of the LP faction, led by Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza, has been harping about the “elitism” within the LP, which was made more pronounced with Noynoy as its standard bearer and with Mar as a possible running mate.

Atienza seems to be saying that if Mar were to be Noynoy’s vice presidential running mate, then we would have a tandem akin to the Philippines’ version of a monarchy.

Atienza has been hammering on the point that the privilege of running for high political positions shouldn’t be limited by the LP for those whose parents’ faces appear on our peso bills.  

At the height of the LP intramurals, Atienza had complained that the LP’s woes stem partly from the fact that the other faction where Roxas belongs to are composed of elitist politicos who have nothing but contempt for LP members bereft of political pedigrees. In short, Mar and ilk would have nothing to do with masa members of the LP, like barangay officials.

Hard to sell

Despite all his efforts to underplay his elitist background, first through his “Mr. Palengke” ads and later, through his “Ramdam ko kayo” and “padyak” infomercials, plus his “bakya” attempts to open his personal life to the masa via a televised pamanhikan and a church-hopping spree to choose a wedding venue for his marriage to TV celebrity Korina Sanchez, Mar always betrays his true colors.

Case in point: When the Atienza faction of the LP held a national convention at the Manila Hotel about three years ago, Mar and his stooges belittled the event by claiming that it was a pseudo congress because it was attended only by barangay officials. 

Does Mar mean that barangay officials are lesser mortals who do not deserve even his scant attention or to become members of the LP? Does he mean that if they couldn’t speak English with an Arneow accent or hurl invectives in Spanish, they don’t deserve to be treated like equals, much less as LP members?

Plasticity

We thank Mar for withdrawing his plans to run for President, not because he’s making a sacrifice, but due to the fact that he will at least spare us his “kaplastikan” on TV.

Now, his next step should  be to scuttle his vice presidential bid altogether as a favor to the masa who can see through all his pretensions.

He cannot fool the masa with his costly TV infomercials. This is why he has failed to get enough traction in the public opinion polls—poor Filipinos, who comprise an overwhelming majority of voters, don’t buy his crap. Hence his relatively poor SWS and Pulse Asia ratings despite the hundreds of millions of pesos squandered on his supposedly pro-poor infomercials.