Our hunch is that the BBM-Sara Presidential and Vice Presidential tandem will win in Mindanao come May 9 elections. But should they lose, we can only attribute such an unfortunate feat in the UniTeam’s failure to campaign personally in the Provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-tawi. These provinces are heavily Muslim populated and their not stomping in the areas can possibly lead our Muslim brothers that the tandem may have taken them for granted.
While the UniTeam candidates had the endorsement recently of former UP Professor and founder of the Muslim Separatist Group Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Nur Misuari, it is likely that his time may have already been lost in the consciousness of the younger generation Muslims. The latter is now the bigger bulk of the Moto voters.
Yes, the tandem and some of their senatorial aspirants have visited the Zamboanga Provinces and Lanao del Norte, specifically Iligan City, but the team skipped – intentionally or not – the neighboring and more Islamic Province of Lanao del Sur.
It is our assumption that the primary reason for not personally appearing or conducting campaign activities in the areas we earlier mentioned is security. Perhaps the UniTeam campaign planners are still worried that the Muslims have not yet moved on from the hurt and even hatred borne by the infamous Jabidah Massacre during the time of BBM’s father. Also, Sara for her part could be entertaining the idea that some Muslim extremists heap their blame on her father President Rodrigo Duterte for their debacle in their Marawi siege, one opportunity that the ISIS-influenced group could have thought to be its stepping stone to establishing its extremist Islamic ideology in the country.
The move of course is a well-calculated one. But it could not be relegated as a possible factor in case of a BBM-Sara team loss in the overall count in Mindanao.
Nevertheless, we have to admit that Christians are still the dominant population in this Southern Philippine island. Should the BBM-Sara ticket muster enough lead in the Christian community its chance of losing in the overall count is remote.
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We are not much aware of the political situation in the Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCos) but we are certain that the likelihood of re-electionist Al David Uy losing in his bid is nil,
Yes, because Samal has been at its peak in development as a local government unit in Uy’s time. The young mayor was able to handle the city government’s response against the CoViD 19 pandemic exceedingly well. And despite the health emergency the tourism industry which is the island city’s life-blood has remained vibrant as ever.
Of course for some time in the pandemic era, the industry somehow was brought down to its knees. But still in almost three years it has managed to survive and is now leaping in comeback even at the current Level 2 category of the city in this pandemic regime.
As to the Mayor’s challenger he needs to have all the aces he could muster and hopefully may have already thrown on the table. Those aces, assuming that the opponent aspirant/s has and already laid open, must be able to shake the foundation of Mayor Uy’s advantage. Anything less could only mean certainty of the young city executive’s reelection.
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Yesterday we saw in a social media post Davao City Mayor and Vice Presidential candidate Sara Duterte-Carpio strongly endorsing Second District Congressional aspirant Danilo Dayanghirang’s son Danilo III for a council seat.
In the process though, she was heaping praise for the younger Dayanghirang’ father. With all the good words Inday Sara described to councilor Danny, her act cannot be interpreted in another way but a subtle endorsement of the elder Dayanghirang’s congressional aspiration.
Of course the people in the second district are also well aware that Sara, her father President Rodrigo Duterte, her younger brother and mayoral bet Baste Duterte have also openly endorsed Dayanghirang’s rival incumbent Vincent Garcia.
This move by the top political gods of the city is the wisest ever adopted by politicians similarly situated. After all, by making the endorsees believe that they are the ones more strongly pushed as the god’s supported candidate, it would be unlikely for them to shift loyalty.
Hence, the responsibility of convincing the voters that he is the legitimate beneficiary of the city’s political gods’ endorsement, now shifts to the aspirants themselves. How they will do it will be answered after the last ballot for the second congressional derby is counted. We will just have to wait four days more.
For comments and/or reactions we can be reached through e-mail address: victorino.sumalinog@yahoo.com; Mobile No. 09392980435; Landline 2372169.
