I am sure you have read the results, again, of the Social Weather Stations survey on senatorial candidates for 2010 commissioned by former Senator Sergio Osmena. The names in the survey list were culled from a column by former Senator Ernesto Maceda in the Daily Tribune.
Oh these former senators!
Again, my name was not in the list given to respondents. I am sure the old, traditional politicians are afraid to put my name in that list. I think I know why.
But that is okay. The top 15 in the SWS survey jives with the results of the internal surveys, interviews, and FGDs we have been conducting the past two years through our groups in the provinces.
And so let me get my pink crystal ball, clean it, and peer into its depths again to draw the names of the possible top 12 senators for 2010.
Since the whole brouhaha started with the former senators, let us include their names and those of the reelectionist senators in the hula hoops of my pink crystal ball.
Among the reelectionists, the following will land in the top 12. The names are not listed according to rank:
Franklin Drilon -- LP
Miriam Defensor Santiago -- PRP
Bong Revilla -- Lakas-Kampi
Pia Cayetano -- Lakas-Kampi going to NP
Jamby Madrigal -- PDP-Laban
Ralph Recto -- Lakas-Kampi
Sergio Osmena -- PDP-Laban
That is already SEVEN names.
I have it on good authority that former Senators Jun Magsaysay and Johnny Flavier, as well as now Senate President Johnny Ponce Enrile, are not running anymore for the Senate.
And so there will be FIVE -- repeat, only FIVE -- new names in the top 12 senators for batch 2010.
Who are these newbies? I have my guesses, yes, but I am keeping this list close to my chest. The only clue I can give is that I am happy that all of them are young and bright candidates --and they are all friends of mine.
And the phones of these five young people, I am sure, are now ringing and ringing, because the old and established parties (mostly trapo, sadly) are now trying to lasso them into their group, to form the two-three names that would win in their 12-person senatorial slates.
For no single political party would be able to field 12 people who would capture the imagination of the nation and catapult them into the senatorial circle -- certainly a tough feat, with all those rich, fully-funded reelectionists running like a storm of Arabian horses let loose on the race track.
A political party would indeed be lucky if two, or three, or at the most, four, of its candidates would become senators of the republic in May of 2010.
As the poet Andrew Marvell said in "To His Coy Mistress:"
"And at my back I always hear/ Time's winged chariot hurrying near. . ."
I am not a mistress, at this point in the time-space continuum, but let me be coy, for once.
Oh these former senators!
Again, my name was not in the list given to respondents. I am sure the old, traditional politicians are afraid to put my name in that list. I think I know why.
But that is okay. The top 15 in the SWS survey jives with the results of the internal surveys, interviews, and FGDs we have been conducting the past two years through our groups in the provinces.
And so let me get my pink crystal ball, clean it, and peer into its depths again to draw the names of the possible top 12 senators for 2010.
Since the whole brouhaha started with the former senators, let us include their names and those of the reelectionist senators in the hula hoops of my pink crystal ball.
Among the reelectionists, the following will land in the top 12. The names are not listed according to rank:
Franklin Drilon -- LP
Miriam Defensor Santiago -- PRP
Bong Revilla -- Lakas-Kampi
Pia Cayetano -- Lakas-Kampi going to NP
Jamby Madrigal -- PDP-Laban
Ralph Recto -- Lakas-Kampi
Sergio Osmena -- PDP-Laban
That is already SEVEN names.
I have it on good authority that former Senators Jun Magsaysay and Johnny Flavier, as well as now Senate President Johnny Ponce Enrile, are not running anymore for the Senate.
And so there will be FIVE -- repeat, only FIVE -- new names in the top 12 senators for batch 2010.
Who are these newbies? I have my guesses, yes, but I am keeping this list close to my chest. The only clue I can give is that I am happy that all of them are young and bright candidates --and they are all friends of mine.
And the phones of these five young people, I am sure, are now ringing and ringing, because the old and established parties (mostly trapo, sadly) are now trying to lasso them into their group, to form the two-three names that would win in their 12-person senatorial slates.
For no single political party would be able to field 12 people who would capture the imagination of the nation and catapult them into the senatorial circle -- certainly a tough feat, with all those rich, fully-funded reelectionists running like a storm of Arabian horses let loose on the race track.
A political party would indeed be lucky if two, or three, or at the most, four, of its candidates would become senators of the republic in May of 2010.
As the poet Andrew Marvell said in "To His Coy Mistress:"
"And at my back I always hear/ Time's winged chariot hurrying near. . ."
I am not a mistress, at this point in the time-space continuum, but let me be coy, for once.
Comments
hooray for u.