So kids, if we go by the results of surveys and polls, we know it's Duterte and Marcos, right? Uhm, okay, wait, not so fast. Hold thy stick horses and swords yet, little brown Don Quixotes.
Meanwhile, Miriam, though quite obviously sick and tired of being sick and tired is none the sadder at the end of the day as she is doted on by an ever supportive hubby; Poe would be the wiser if she re-reconsidered re-renouncing her Filipino-ness yet again; and, Binay, well, he still has got the well-guarded palatial home to escape to, therefore still the richer than most of us, at least, while all graft and corruption cases filed against him are still being deliberated on in court.
Of the 5 presidential candidates, none would be more devastated or downtrodden to say the least at the losing end than Korinna, Roxas's awfully-wedded wife, who as far as her 'tsinelas' schtick goes, has been posturing for the most coveted seat at the Philippine White House. It's as if she was born with a mindset like that, and no amount of bashing and trolling could keep her from thinking she's the next First Lady of the Philippines.
However she came at a time when the general voting public is more sick than tired of this kind of politicking. Had she come at a more pivotal epoch in the history of Philippine politics, say, late sixties or early seventies, she could have given Imelda a run for the money. Who's to say what awaited the fatalist Pinoy's fate had the gods of democracy pitted her against the Rose of Tacloban? To be sure, a battle of bouffants would have ensued. But I am digressing...
No, the Filipino masses wouldn't have any of that political spin anymore. The common 'tao' is now an informationally empowered man whose political IQ or knowledge about powerful figures is no longer the size of their 'bakya' or 'tsinelas'. I mean, if he has thus far reached and explored every nook and cranny of the POTUS's White House, virtually speaking that is, what's stopping him from prying deeper into each and every presidentiable's storied background?
Case in point: A quick search on Youtube would yield vids depicting Korinna as a slave-driving b*tch who has not the slightest mercy for not just one, not two, only God knows how many househelps, and production laborers, are there who had at point or another bore the brunt of a maleficent female power in wrathful action. It wouldn't be so surprising if she ordered to take those image-scarring vids down. IMHO, any woman hellbent on becoming First Lady would do just about anything.
Which leads us down to a bit of conspiracist thinking that it was Korinna who courted Mar, and not the other way around. The trending video where Mar who appeared miffed apparently ignored Korinna emerging from a van as they made their way to the first presidential debate venue in Cagayan de Oro is a tad obvious for comfort.
Despite that however, the current generation of voting populace, who practically grew up into and along the mushy storylines of telenovelas and soaps, have gotten more and more averse to real-life political narratives somehow slowly trending in Philippine political landscape: No! Korinna cannot be Marimar by virtue of her vertically-challenged physique, and No! Korinna cannot be Amor Powers in spite of the similarity in eye-shadow and eyebrow-flicking mannerism alone.
Ironically, Pinoys, though enured and seemingly all dumbed down as they are from too much soapy sh*t, at the end of the day, the ideals of truth, equality and justice are the driving factors that make them aspire or hope for the best. Enter Duterte, a trash-talking septuagenarian whose fresh dude guts is non-pareil even among the celebrated attention hogs of Philippine politics and showbiz, whichever comes first.
While he does seem like the personification of an idea whose time has finally come, Pinoys en masse have shown unwavering support as if they have finally found the one true leader who will do as he says, who means whatever he says, and will take no prisoner in his quest for what’s beneficial to the greater majority.
There is much to be said about the devil-may-care shoot-from-the-hip kind of charisma Duterte has built up for himself which he intends for all and sundry to see or judge. True, it's been a roller coaster as far as those hyperbolic pronouncements and humor go, but one thing is certain: every utterance or joke he has issued whether off and on-cam had worked in his favor. The voters have become all the more welcoming of such personality quirks. Which only means that Duterte does have an impact in the voting collective. Either that or Pinoys are just placing so much confidence in him and his promise that he can as much steer the country 360° around as he had done with his bulwark in Davao City for the past 23 years.
When I said earlier that any FL-wannabe would do just about anything, that by the way includes the application of sleight-of-hand schemes and strategies, or in laymen parlance, cheating. After all she is campaigning from the side of the current administration, and any administration whose likeability factor had trudged downhill in the latter part of their regime has so much at stake as far as loyalties with those whom they owed much in their bid for power.
Case in point: Along with many other political lagniappes allegedly given away during her reign involving mostly her capitalist kith and kins, Cory Aquino reinstituted among others the ownership of the ABS-CBN media network back to the Lopezes when she became president. Kris Aquino’s ambition aside, it was clearly a strategy in view of the then-beleaguered Hacienda Luisita: media favor = continuous coverup .
Those in power must do whatever it takes to protect those who catapulted them in the first place. It would be foolhardy for any beneficiary of such favors to make as counteractive a move as, say, deny the egotist whims of cheesy Krissy, and to the detriment of the emotional and psychological well-being of the masses. Each time she cries on national TV, a throng would cry along with her, clueless of the marketing rationale that went behind the teardrops that fell as if perfectly on cue with the redundant cheesy musical segue.
Kris Aquino may have had gotten all Filipinos into thinking for the longest time that she’s doing the masa favor by adopting into her coterie such slum-bred creative oddities as Vice Ganda, Darla, Melai, but no, this gesture has been calculated imho to somehow counter the rather shady image of the Cojuangcos and the Aquinos who through the decades have been accused of grabbing lands from poor farmers and manslaughter.
Consider for instance: every time PNoy or the Hacienda Luisita is embroiled in an issue of national interest, Kris is up and about first thing the following morning on national TV with a grand agenda of her own. Queen of all (Diversionary) Media much?
But Duterte and Marcos are winning because the learning curve of the public has reached a point of no-return. They no longer want a leader who will be dictated by an elite few for personal or familial interest.
It saddens one to think Kris, Korinna, Mar, PNoy, and ABS-CBN will do anything in their respective powers being in the administration, to stop Duterte and Marcos from claiming their easy victory.
But Filipinos are sprung from a hardy race. They have it in their revolutionary Malayan blood to know better than just let a chance for true change to slip through their hands.
So if Kris Aquino is just a show in and of herself, and ABS-CBN, a medium if nothing more, it’s about time everyone pulled the plug.