Skip to main content

Under which party will I run?

Now that Mar Roxas has junked his presidential run, the composition of the senatorial slate of the Liberal Party will change. You have heard from the party's honorable men who are in the partial list. We will see if Noynoy will follow the list that Mar has prepared, or if he will get some more from outside LP, or add some from civil society.

At this point in the time-space continuum (as my freshmen students at Ateneo would put it), I guess one of the main criterion should be the candidates' winnability. What good would it be if you stuff your slate with do-gooders who are not known throughout the nation? It would be difficult, at this point, to short-circuit the awareness-endearment-passion triad that goes on in the hearts and minds of the voters.

And so, my cellphone has begun to beep and beep again this morning.

One of the messages came from the lawyer of a presidential candidate who belongs to a party with a vast machinery. He congratulated me on -- and may I quote -- "your still-high ranking in the Pulse Asia senatorial survey."

This was the survey where I said I became a victim of vote-shaving. Survey pa lang, may dagdag-bawas na? My real ranking and percentage was changed by this big, rich political party that commissioned the survey, which had legal rights to the dissemination of the results thereof. And, also, may I ask pointedly: the right to shave some points from the other presidential candidates, and from this maverick front-runner in the senatorial race?

So early in the game, I thought, and already playing the dirty card?

Another text message this morning came from the presidentiable himself, whose party has a formidable war chest. He said that if LP does not include me in their slate, "it's their loss. Our door is open for you. Just say when." Followed with a smiley ;-)

O ayan. The coast is clear na, ha. Darna na ito!

Let us see what are the plans of the Liberal Party. Then as my friend Tina would put it, "We will see what we will see."

Deadlines, decisions, lifelines should be clear by September 30.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Poems by Danton Remoto

In the Graveyard Danton Remoto The walls round the graveyard Are ancient and cracked. The moss is too thick they look dark. The paint on my grandfather’s tomb Has the color of bone. Two yellow candles we lighted, Then we uttered our prayers. On my left, somebody’s skull Stares back at me: a black Nothingness in the eyes. The graveyard smells of dust Finer than the pore of one’s skin— Dust mixed with milk gone sour. We are about to depart When a black cat darts Across our path, quickly, With a rat still quivering In its mouth. * Immigration Border Crossing (From Sadao, Thailand to Bukit Changloon, Malaysia) Danton Remoto On their faces that betray No emotion You can read the unspoken Questions: Are you really A Filipino? Why is your skin Not the color of padi ? Your eyes, Why are they slanted Like the ones Who eat babi ? And your palms, Why are there no callouses Layered like th...
Post a Comment
Read more

A mansion of many languages

BY DANTON REMOTO, abs-sbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 10/16/2008 1:00 AM REMOTE CONTROL In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said: “It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onio...
1 comment
Read more

Taboan: Philippine Writers' Festival 2009

By John Iremil E. Teodoro, Contributor The Daily Tribune 02/26/2009 A happy and historical gathering of wordsmiths with phallocentric and Manila-centric overtones *** This is from my friend, the excellent poet and critic John Iremil Teodoro, who writes from the magical island of Panay. I wish I have his energy, his passion and his time to write. Writing needs necessary leisure. But this budding, bading politician has shifted his directions. On this day alone, I have to attend not one, not two, but three political meetings. And there goes that new poem out of the window. Sigh. *** According to Ricardo de Ungria, a poet of the first magnitude and the director of Taboan: The Philippine International Writers Festival 2009, “the original idea was for a simple get together of writers from all over the country who have been recipients, directly or indirectly, of grants and awards from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). What happened last Feb. 11 to 13 was far from being ...
2 comments
Read more