WE BEG for the indulgence of our readers for failing to come out on this page yesterday, a day after the mid-term elections, when many would have expected us to tackle issues related to the May 12 polls including the initial results thereof.
Yes, we would have lengthily written about it. But it so happened that we had an unexpected visitor in the house, a nephew who had just disembarked from an ocean-going vessel. But just the same, the subject of our conversation was still the just-concluded election and the winners or those likely to win after the final votes shall have been counted.
Specifically, our conversation focused on the outcome of the election of local officials in Davao City. Our nephew told us he was not surprised at all by the sweep of the Dutertes and the candidates who aligned with them in the three districts of the city.
According to our nephew, while on board his ship and prior to the supposed arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by elements of our own Police organization, the talks of the boat’s crew, many of whom are from Davao, were that the Duterte-aligned local candidates could be in for a close fight. Most arguments supporting such perception are that the pro-national administration bets could be backed with the resources of Marcos Jr.’s Alyansa.
However, our seaman-nephew told us, with the former President arrested and given to the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC), his fellow crew members started believing the tide of massive support appeared to have shifted immediately to the Duterte-backed political group.
The Davaoeños among us, our nephew shared, were already showing our strong partisan feeling for the former President and long-time Davao City Mayor. Unexpectedly, our nephew told us, his fellow seafarers from Luzon and the Visayas manifested that they were with the Davaoeño sailors in the belief that the former chief executive’s treatment by the administration was indeed political persecution in the highest order.
From then on, he said, the boat’s crew, including those from the Visayas and other parts of Luzon were already joining in conversations chastising the move of the national administration in having the arrest of Duterte effected and having him flown immediately to The Hague, Netherlands where the ICC is based.
On our part, we shared with our nephew our own take on the former President’s “no semblance of resistance” in his arrest and shipment to The Hague. We told our nephew that when the former President literally challenged the ICC and even the administration of the incumbent President for the said court to “bring it on,” it was his well-calculated “ruse.”
Unfortunately for the administration, we told our newly disembarked nephew, the supposed providers of legal advice fell for the Duterte gambit. The administration bit it “hook, line, and sinker.” It was when it started to “choke” the pro-administration campaign’s throat. And such “choke” was more overt in Davao City where the administration could hardly find willing and qualified individuals to oppose the Dutertes.
So acute was the dearth of non-hesitant candidates to run against the ruling family and those with them in their home-grown political party that only a few ran under the Karlo Nograles-bannered administration ticket. Every aspirant only wanted to be identified as part of the Duterte line-up, even if they are outside of the official ticket.
We told our nephew that after the last ballot was counted, even those City Council aspirants closest to the tail-ender in the win list were all Duterte-identified bets.
In other words, we shared with our nephew, the sweep of the Dutertes in Davao City’s election for local positions from the mayor down to the last councilors in each of the three districts was a total annihilation of their political nemesis. It repudiated what remains of a semblance of a local opposition.
Of course, we did not hesitate to tell our nephew that the dominance of the Dutertes in the city’s governance does not totally mean the Davaoeños take the policies laid down by the Duterte reign in its entirety. It may be because, for now, there is no way those who are not in accord with the ruling clan can find equal or better alternatives to run the city, not even from among those who presented themselves to be.
Meanwhile, at the national scene, we offered our nephew our take on the debacle suffered by most administration-identified candidates, starting from Senators to Congressmen to provincial, city, and municipal elective officials.
We told him that the President, who is head of the administration alliance, made a grave mistake in having the former President arrested while the campaign season was in progress. And by allowing himself to be nabbed and subsequently spirited out to The Hague without any iota of resistance, Duterte was making a supreme sacrifice for his candidates and at the same time creating the “hero” image for himself.
His move was the trigger for the massive shift in sympathy and eventually political support. The living proof is the astounding 29 – 0 historic win the Duterte team had in Davao City – a feat matched only by the Vico Sotto team’s similar sweep in Pasig City, Metro Manila.
