Is this some sort of drumroll tactic? Opposition newsletter Rappler “reports” that top Opposition coalition of the moment, 1Sambayan “would unveil on Independence Day its official list of nominees for president, vice president, and senators whom the group would endorse in the 2022 elections.” It will also “ask Filipinos to vote online and help them choose the final list of bets to endorse in 2022”.
In essence, what accounts for all this time 1Sambayan is giving itself before they lock in their bets seems to be all about subjecting their pool of horses to a popularity funnel — i.e., the nomination process to test their acceptance amongst coalition honchos and then, as stated, leaving it up to an online mob to decide for them.
Nowhere in this approach can be found any criteria to do with a candidate’s alignment to a an articulated set of principles that collectively define what it is exactly 1Sambayan stands for. Well, to be fair, we actually get one thing about 1Sambayan — it stands against the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. But what does it stand for?
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Really, it is quite reasonable to expect the top coalition of the Opposition to stand for something beyond that tired old lazy spiel of being “anti-Duterte”. Retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio supposedly articulated the “shared values” of the various partisan blocs that supposedly opted into the coalition thus…
We are a coalition of democratic forces. We reject those who are identified with authoritarianism. We reject those who are responsible for extrajudicial killings or who abet extrajudicial killings.
Nice. Evidently, 1Sambayan’s shared values are just a long-winded motherhood statement that they are anti-Duterte. After all, they have asserted since 2016 that Duterte is guilty of “extrajudicial killings” and is an “authoritarian”. In effect, they simply — and lazily — repackaged five years’ worth of thumping ululations into a dishonest statement of “shared valus”. Classy, right?
Just because a party managed to corrale a bunch of bozos into a pig pen to feed off these “shared values” does not mean that they have that other important ingredient for an intelligent pitch to the Filipino voter: a platform and vision. Being not authoritarian and not an extrajudicial killer is not a platform and certainly not a substantial vision of the sort of country Filipinos would like to build. But, see, this is classic Yellowtard rhetoric — beating the drum over what Filipinos should not be. How about what Filipinos could be, guys? Nah. That’s asking too much of a bunch of jokers who are united only in an ironic shared hate for a popular president.
Nice try losers. Oh, and by the way, June 12 is not the Philippines’ “independence day”. Check your facts, plez.
Webmaster of Get Real Philippines
Even themselves cannot decide on who would be their standard bearers in the next Presidential and vice presidential elections from their shallow roster of unwinnable nominees. The bigger question is, are they pretty sure that whoever they decide to pick is willing to be identified with them?
That’s the million dollar question — their ability to hold the coalition together when individuals’ egos and greed get in the way.