Which universe?

The angst of the Bongbong Marcos for Vice President campaign is easy to understand; as the last tally of the unofficial count shows, the first-term senator and heir of the Marcos political tradition will likely come up less than a percentage point short of victory. But in the campaign’s attempt to prove that Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been cheated, it has become confused about what is real and what is not. It has created an alternate universe that in time may rival that of Marvel or DC or the other billion-dollar entertainment franchises that depend on creative license; like some of the dicier movies in these various series, however, its alternate version of reality is incoherent: full of holes.

In the Marcos universe, the signs of administration-engineered cheating were evident even before Election Day, because of, well, the surveys.

Meeting reporters after his final campaign rally the Thursday before the election, Marcos aired his fear that the surveys were being manipulated. “Dahil ang kanilang gustong sabihin ay kami ang mananalo, kaya’t niluluto ang mga numero (Because what they want to say is that they will win, that’s why they’re cooking the numbers),” he said. “Ang kayang idaya ay kakaunti lang kaya kunyari ay nakahabol na para yung kulang pa kaya nang idaya. Yun ang aming pangamba. (They can cheat only by a little; that’s why they pretend that they have caught up, so that the gap can be fixed by cheating. That’s our fear.) I hope hindi totoo (it’s not true). I hope that I am proven wrong. But that is a fear not only of myself, not only of other candidates, but also of many, many Filipinos.”

He did not mention the Liberal Party’s vice presidential candidate, Rep. Leni Robredo, but it was clear that Marcos was referring to her. In the last weeks of the long and tumultuous campaign, Robredo had managed to catch up with Marcos in the surveys; the last surveys of the three most credible polling organizations all showed a virtual tie for first.

But here lies the first hole in the Marcos movie series, large enough to swallow entire suns. What was the senator’s basis for saying he was leading the vice presidential race? The same surveys he says were being manipulated! If he maintains that Social Weather Stations, Pulse Asia, and the Standard’s Laylo Report all show him in the lead, he cannot simply wish that inconvenient plot point, about Robredo sharing the lead, away.

In Marcos’ alternate universe, no amount of criticism of the Marcos dictatorship and the martial law years can make a difference on his steady and methodical rise to the vice presidency. During the official vice presidential debate hosted by CNN Philippines, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano spent a lot of time leveling criticism after criticism at Marcos and his father’s two decades in power. Cayetano later revealed to the Inquirer that right after the debate, Marcos went up to him and said, “It’s not going to work.” He meant that Cayetano’s raising of the martial law issue would not have the impact Cayetano intended.

But in fact, it already had an impact. During the debate itself, Marcos was largely on the defensive, and was being defined not only by Cayetano but by Robredo, too, and to an extent even by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV. Immediate feedback after the debate showed that Cayetano was seen as a dominant player, and his quip about Marcos being ready to steal his time was quite possibly the single most resonant moment of a debate watched by millions. Thinking that focused criticism of the martial law years won’t have an impact is another logical hole in the alternative universe.

Now the Marcos campaign wants the Commission on Elections to grant its demand that it conduct a “systems audit.” The “it” refers not to the Comelec but to Marcos’ camp. “In view of those doubts and the admitted tampering of the Transparency Server and the breach of protocols relating thereto, I am formally requesting that this honorable commission permit my team of IT experts and programmers, within three days from the receipt hereof, to conduct an audit of the Transparency Server and the Central Server, under the close supervision of this Commission and the technical personnel.” In what universe would a partisan audit be considered credible? The right thing to do should have been to ask for an independent third party to conduct the audit.