Leni Robredo is the antithesis of Rodrigo Duterte. But she is not naive
to think that a wholesale rejection of the traditional politics that Duterte
represents is necessarily wise. She doesn’t see the red or yellow brigades voting for Marcos, or other
Duterte proxies either. But she can certainly win over many disappointed
Duterte votes, viably even Marcos’ vaunted Solid North so long as she didn’t
channel Cory Aquino too strongly as to preemptively repulse them.
It won’t take long, when Leni starts embracing the eclectic Filipino
masses who are not all doctrinaire socialists, before you begin to hear the
radical left complain that Leni Robredo is not “opposition enough.”
So dyeing her political brand pink is a masterful stroke. It sends a strong
statement that she doesn’t intend to be purely centrist yellow or militant leftist
red.
I worry that it is not her detractors but her own supporters who may not
get it. The overeager ones, especially, may be clinging to the antiquated
dogma that to support a candidate is to
own her politics, forgetting that politics is addition, not antagonism.
I’ve observed this early in social media that some are convinced
demonizing Leni’s opponents is the way to go. Take the anti-historical
revisionists, for instance. I agree that the Marcos family are kleptocrats of
the highest order. This is a historical fact. If some people insist on remaining in denial
of it after forty-nine years of immersion in the fact, clearly reason
cannot be the reason. They could only have been part of the kleptocracy in ways
big or small. Proselytizing among their number is a total waste of time. Make
no mistake, plunder as epic in scale as the
Marcoses did it must not be erased from memory. But condemning the revision of
history is meaningless to generations
that do not know history. The campaign period is too short a time
to educate e-gaming millennials who weren’t born yet when Marcos was dictator. Remember,
one needs only to have been born after 2003 to vote.
The same goes for human rights abuses during Marcos’ time. If people
were not fazed by all that killing as they were happening, how much more will their
outrage be inflamed to be reminded about it four decades after the fact? The
atrocities deserve rich condemnation of course. But they cannot merit central
focus in a short election campaign just for the blood-curdling memories they
evoke. All the horrendous memories of the holocaust
is not preventing the reemergence of ultra rght wing fascism now sweeping across Europe. Neither
did the kumbayah legacy of the 1960s civil rights movement
prevent the rise—and now the menacing threat of a return—of a Donald Trump. The
lesson is simple. Trafficking in historical fear and nostalgic civil
disobedience did not help Hillary Clinton in the US presidential elections in
2016. It did not help Mar Roxas in the Philippine presidential election in the
same year. To think it will help Leni Robredo in 2022 is a sentimental but
foolhardy, and ultimately counterproductive repolishing of the vanished glory
of the 1986 EDSA People Power. It is what it is.
There’s no denying that right now the bulk of Leni’s supporters are
middle-class to upper middle class. It
is the most socially and economically upward-mobile class, one that has the
greatest capacity to shape public opinion and excite voter participation. The
goal of the Leni Robredo campaign has to be to increase the volume of that base, spilling beyond class divisions and not just to raise its awareness temperature.
I realize, of course, that preparation-wise, I am Monday-morning-quarterbacking here. The deadline for new voter registration is past. The success of the Obama campaign was largely due not to its campaign messaging but in effectively bringing out the vote. You must assume that your supporters will vote for you 100%. The true mission, therefore, is to draw the highest turnout possible. US Democrats in state, city and county levels literally went door-to-door in 2015, even escorting youths to voter registration centers a full year before the campaign even started. It makes you shudder to wonder how many of these young animated Leni supporters today actually remembered, or even bothered to register? If they did not register to vote, they can shout themselves hoarse all they want, or storm the digital ramparts of social media but they cannot deliver the only thing they can guarantee Leni: their all-important one vote.
It hardly matters now. The fight throughout the remainder of the
election period will now be two-pronged: First, to ensure that the vote of the Leni
Robredo base is brought out on election day. No more expansion is possible here. Second, to make the best effort to
turn the biggest possible number of antagonistic voters around. Any expansion is possible only here.
This is not something you can accomplish by preaching to the choir. That doesn’t teach the choir any new songs, it just enables
them to sing louder. But noise alone will not win the campaign. The most clever
memes on Facebook will not reach the rural yokels who don’t even own a cellphone or have even heard of the internet.
Fortunately, the Leni Robredo campaign has one thing going for them:
Leni Robredo. All they have to do is just
let her talk. Her launching speech is a veritable clinic on how to
message correctly: clear, concise, conscienticizing but not condemning and most
of all credible.
If any single dominant group of supporters tries to interfere with her
honest messaging, to brand her more sharply or to add fire to her belly, they
will rue the day when they realize that all they helped her accomplish is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. © 2021
Joel R. Dizon
NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:
Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON
