Shattered bamboo reeds

“Do not look at the heavens through a bamboo reed.” Can this Japanese proverb help us sift through the May 13 elections’ mixed  bag? Nobody loses an election here. Those trashed insist they were cheated.

“My supporters and lawyers insist I fight on,” said legislator and Talisay Mayor Eduardo Gullas, 24 hours after the polls closed. “But I concede and wish my opponent all the best.”

After being trounced, Cebu City Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young insisted: The surveys of his camp foresaw a 14-percent victory margin. “Survey result is what is the reality.” And who confused actual election tallies with survey “guesstimates”? Cebu buffed up financial assistance to teachers from P5,000 to P10,000. The teachers were bought, Young  charged.

Nonsense. A hefty dose of Prozac or Zyprexia would jolt  Young back to reality. The Villafuertes, who have dominated   Camarines Sur for almost 40 years, need that too.

Nelly Villafuerte’s well-funded machine scraped up 31,364 votes. But the wife of the late interior secretary and former Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo racked up 102,694 votes. Like Corazon Aquino and her son, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, Leni Robredo was badgered by people to run.

Grace Poe shattered the survey crystal bowls when she topped the 2013 senatorial race. Vice President Jojo Binay suddenly broke into cold sweat. The Makati kingpin had reveled in being touted as “the next president.”  That would collapse like a pack of cards should Grace run. Flustered then  would be a mild term to describe Binay—and incumbent Interior Secretary Mar  Roxas. Both know that history has a replay button.

In Makati, Senator-elect Nancy Binay came in third, garnering 165,666 votes. Grace topped the Senate race in the Binay “heartland”—where control levers are kept in family hands.

Until Grace emerged, the 2016 contest seemed locked into Binay versus Roxas. “That’s Scylla and Charybdis, that’s a rock and a hard place, that’s the devil and the deep blue sea,” Inquirer’s Conrado de Quiros wrote.

“We’ve got three years to change things, we’ve got three years to look for an alternative. Otherwise, we won’t be going back to the future. We’ll be rushing forward to the past,” De Quiros warned.

Some political dynasties that “looked at heavens through a  bamboo  reed” have crumbled rapidly, Inquirer’s Solita Monsod noted. That includes now the Garcias in Cebu, the Fuas in Siquijor, the Antoninos in South Cotabato, and the Jalosjoses in the three Zamboangas. Will they be accountable for past  lapses? No basta decir adios. It’s not enough to say goodbye.

Other dynasties were sapped by partial losses: the Josons in Nueva Ecija, the Tañadas in Quezon, the Sumulongs in Rizal, the Teveses in Negros Oriental, the Dazas in Northern Samar, the Villarosas in Occidental Mindoro, plus the Tupases in Iloilo.

But more dynasties are emerging: the Pacquiaos in Sarangani and Alvarezes in Palawan. In 37 provinces, dynasties still “look at the heavens with a bamboo reed.” But the disapproval is rising.

Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu rode a Simba armored personnel carrier, escorted by a military convoy, to his proclamation as governor of Maguindanao, reports  Mindanews Carol Arguillas. Three years back, a Simba also ferried him to oath-taking. No one bitched. Mangudadatu’s wife, sisters, relatives plus 32 journalists from the media were slain November 2009 in Maguindanao. “It was the worst preelection violent incident in Philippine history and the worst worldwide in terms of the number of media workers killed in a single incident,” Arguillas recalls.

A  “two-year window of opportunity” to ram through measures to consolidate initial reforms has opened for the administration with its 9-3  poll victory, write Romeo Bernardo and Marie Christine Tang for Global Source Partners. Key measures, from a new mining law to the completion of the Bangsamoro peace talks, now have a better chance being enacted. “There’s little risk of President Aquino becoming a lame duck president (soon), they note. He should hit the ground running when the new Congress opens…”

“Poverty is the worst form of violence,” Gandhi wrote. Today, 28 out of every 100 Filipinos scrounge below national poverty lines—unchanged over the last six years, says the latest National Statistical Coordination Board  data.

About 20 percent of the poorest get 6 percent of the total national income. The “upper crust” of 20 percent corners nearly half of the total national income. You see that in slum families or in scrawny kids cadging for handouts. “Children from the poorest households run twice the risk of dying before age five.”

Aquino’s ace in the hand is unsullied personal integrity. He must harness that as his new team grapples with what historian Barbara Tuchman called the “tyranny of the urgent.” The capacity to govern is sapped by interlocking crises, she wrote. Overwhelmed by today’s demands, “few can plan for tomorrow.”

Filipinos were the first to wage People Power with cell phones. Today, there are 106.9 million cell phones in use. Internet access is 21 percent—and rising slowly. This audience is monitoring Binay, Roxas—and the new kid on the block:  Grace Poe.

What lies ahead? Banquo wistfully complained to Macbeth: “If you can look into the seeds of time. And say/Which grain will grow and which will not.”

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