BEFORE ISKO Moreno’s pathetic Easter Sunday stunt, words were busily passed around that a two-edged political rally, the mother of all, either pro-BBM or anti-Leni, will be stage-managed in Pampanga. The objective is clear and simple: to surpass the mass gathering during Leni Robredo’s political rally in the City of San Fernando recently. The goal: to produce 400,000 warm bodies coming from all over Central Luzon and nearby provinces.
The dream-mammoth rally will be spearheaded by prominent/notorious national and local politicians and businessmen. The former will provide the warm bodies – paid ones, according to a source —while the latter will provide the financial and material logistics in a hand-in-glove operation. By the way, this is supposed to be held on April 29.
Surprisingly, the Pinoy version of the Gang of Four minus One materialized when everyone who’s supposed to have repented of their sins, including but not limited to not returning the excess money accumulated during past campaign season, have moved on as better persons with purer motives.
Alas and alack , it didn’t happen, or so it seemed. Unlike in the old days, when popes could make kings kneel outside the church in numbing snow, modern politics dominate religion with glee and gratification.
Isko’s cocktail didn’t turn out to be a heady brew. Sen. Ping Lacson felt a rug was pulled under his feet in a delayed reflection: he’s been had. He thought it was just a press conference to confirm a common stand among them: Moreno, Lacson, Norberto Gonzales and Manny Pacquiao, who apparently had a Saul-like Damascus illumination while travelling from Mindanao, and didn’t show up at the political pity party. No withdrawal, period.
The whole political shebang unfolded as a Leni-bashing engagement, and the participants, except Moreno, was trapped as innocent victims. Lacson clarified later he wasn’t against Leni, much less wanted her to withdraw from the presidential race. Gonzales showed naivete can also victimized those who have supposedly have learned a lesson or two in dirty politics, considering his age.
Moreno’s logic is skewed. He wants Number 2 (Leni) to withdraw because Number 3 (himself) or Number 4 or 5 (either Pacquiao or Lacson, forget about Gonzales) has a better chance of beating Number 1 (which is supposed to be BBM, so paid surveys say). The logic is wanting in both science and common sense. If Number 2 withdraws, so theory goes, Number 3 or 4 or 5, stands a better chance defeating Number 1. Fat chance.
The idea is as ridiculous as the fake news being spread around and abroad like stale butter that the regime of the late dictator father of the alleged frontrunner in the survey was a ‘golden age’ in Philippine politics. It’s both mind-boggling when compared with facts and figures. It’s a snake oil salesman’s trick. There’s no harm in trying, you may even feel better after.
If Isko’s cocktail was heady at all, it’s because it has caused headaches among the so-called Gang of Four, minus Pacquiao. It backfired. It boomeranged. Now, everyone in those camps are doing what they call in public relations “damage control”, a clean up, so to speak. And only the devil from the north must be laughing or paying or both.
Were some, if not all, members of media complicit during the Easter Sunday media cloak-and-dagger event? It looked that way, given one seemingly innocent but obviously unvetted question from a Manila-based news outlet. Two presidential bets, Lacson and Gonzales, bit the poisoned bait. It was irresponsible, Lacson said. I’m not sure if really came from the VP, Gonzales replied.
In the book, “Dealing With An Angry Public”, author Lawrence Susskind has this to say about media relations. “While the most experienced PR experts urge enlightened standards, the fact remains that the prevailing paradigm of media relations is rooted in a desire to control outcomes,” he wrote. “Many practitioners still fall into the trap of thinking that the media are somehow controllable–, that somehow if you do all the right things , the media will fall into place.’
Lacson’s complaint confirmed that: it’s the media to blame, he rued after, resonating Adam’s justification when he blamed Eve for luring him into biting the forbidden fruit in the Garden on Eden. “It went that way because of the questions from media which kept pounding issues regarding the Vice President,” Lacson explained.
He should have known better having been in a longer engagement with the media as public servant.
“Even experts with more enlightened views still tend to believe that the media can be managed as if they were unequal subordinates rather than equal peers more open to persuasion and argument than to manipulation,” Susskind added.
What was the $64 questions that triggered the Leni-bashing that went downhill from there?
“How would the presidential bets composing the Gang of Four react to the statement purportedly attributed to Vice President Leni Robredo that there would be instability if she loses the 2022 elections?” Lacson raked the Vice President over the coals for saying that. Gonzales said he wasn’t certain about the authenticity of the question. Isko forthwith called for Robredo’s withdrawal.
Was the question planted? Stage-managed press briefings will sometimes avail of that opportunity to trigger a debate. Otherwise, you just have to accept Isko’s belated explanation that he went off-script. Even that, however, coming from a discerning presidential aspirant, may be part of the damage control. Shoot now and apologize later, and walk happily to the bank. In the political season, “withdraw” is the operative word.
As one famous newscaster usually said as a parting shot, “that’s the way it is, folks.”
