Debating the ‘Church vote’

As the saying goes: “Defeat is an orphan while victory has many fathers.”

This may explain why so many people are claiming the winners in the last senatorial elections as “proof” of the public support for or sentiment against the Reproductive Health Law, which is currently caught in the limbo of Supreme Court procedures.

But how is this possible? How could the same set of senators be for/against the same law? It all depends on the beholder, and the person interpreting the turnout.

Sen. Tito Sotto (still remember him?), who was staunchly against the RH bill during the Senate debates, said that Grace Poe’s clinching the top spot among the senatorial wannabes is “proof” that the so-called Catholic vote is “real.” He also said that the drop in the rankings of Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano, who had all voted in favor of the measure, “is strong evidence that there is a Catholic vote.” The Catholic vote, he added, also helped propel Koko Pimentel, Gringo Honasan, Cynthia Villar, Antonio Trillanes and JV Ejercito into the winning circle.

But last I looked, Poe—who has publicly declared her support for reproductive health—as well as Legarda, Escudero and Cayetano, occupy the top four slots in the senatorial tally. Sotto’s favored winners—Pimentel, Honasan, Villar, Trillanes and Ejercito—are caught in the bottom of the list, with Villar, Ejercito and Honasan taking the precarious last three slots.

This may be the reason the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development, a key player in pushing for the passage of the RH Law, rejoiced over the election of pro-RH candidates, saying that “despite the black propaganda of the Church against senatorial candidates who have been supportive of the Reproductive Health Law, a good number of the pro-RH candidates won the recently concluded midterm elections.” This, the group said, is proof that “there is no Catholic vote, and [that] no black propaganda of the Church can steal victory from candidates who advocate reproductive health.”

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To reiterate, six of the seven candidates endorsed by the “Purple Vote” movement are front-runners in the senatorial race, with Sonny Escudero and Bam Aquino joining the pro-RH group. Only Risa Hontiveros among the “Purple Seven” failed to join the winners, but then again, a fellow candidate in Team PNoy, former senator Jun Magsaysay, who is anti-RH, has failed to make it, too.

In the House of Representatives, among the successful reelectionists were staunch RH supporters: Teddy Baguilat (lone district, Ifugao), Kaka Bag-ao (Dinagat Islands), Dina Abad (lone district, Batanes), Bolet Banal (third district, Quezon City), Kimmy Cojuangco (fifth district, Pangasinan), Jaye Lacson-Noel (lone district, Malabon City), Sandy Ocampo (sixth district, Manila), Susan Yap (second district, Tarlac), and Imelda Dimaporo (first district, Lanao del Norte). They won despite the fact that “they faced excruciating campaigns as their respective pastoral localities vocally campaigned against them.”

In a report in the news website Rappler.com, Aries Rufo pointed out that the strength of the Catholic vote should have propelled the candidates of the party Ang Kapatiran, which had mounted a faith-based anti-RH campaign, to victory. But even in the Archdiocese of Lipa, which “unleashed” lay Catholic groups against pro-RH candidates, and across the nation, the Kapatiran contingent is among the bottom-dwellers.

Rufo wrote that in an interview, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles “admitted that creating the ‘Catholic vote’ is still a pipe dream. We are just starting to create a mindset for the Catholic voters,” he said.

So if Sotto says the Catholic vote is real, while Archbishop Arguelles says it is still a pipe dream, who are we to believe? Maybe we should ask “Tito Sen” what it is he’s smoking.

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From Pangasinan comes news of the incredible, though not totally unexpected, victory of “Manay” Gina de Venecia as reelected representative of the fourth district comprising the towns of Mangaldan, San Fabian, San Jacinto, and Manaoag and Dagupan City.

“She did even better than I did!” exclaimed former Speaker Joe de Venecia, Gina’s husband who had represented the district for many years but whose votes were no match for his wife’s steamroller victory this year.

Gina won 92 percent of the votes in the municipalities and 75 percent in Dagupan over her main rival, Celia Lim. Thanking the province’s spiritual patroness, the Blessed Virgin Mary of Manaoag, for the peaceful elections in Pangasinan, Gina cited the need for “strong legislation” to stop or mitigate “money politics” in the country. She added that she intends to reintroduce the movement for state subsidy for political parties initiated by her husband, “who is trying to promote it in Asia to reduce political corruption.”

Meanwhile, Gina is calling for prayers for the stricken Dagupan Mayor Benjie Lim, even as she predicted “wide-ranging reforms” under the new mayor, Belen Fernandez. She also suggested that after a year, defeated Liberal Party gubernatorial candidate Nani Braganza, former mayor of Alaminos City, would make a “dynamic, competent member of the Cabinet representing Pangasinan.” In the meantime, she said, Braganza could be “mobilized to help revitalize the peace talks with the CPP-NDF-NPA.”