No ‘hakot’ for LP

LIBERAL Party senatorial candidates under Team PNoy chose Talisay City and Liloan town for their first campaign sally into vote-rice Cebu, whose 2.5 million voters are not easy to ignore.

Eddie O. Barrita

Small bites

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Lawyer Hilario “Junjun” Davide III, said these are campaign rallies, not a proclamation rally like that of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) ticket held at Plaza Independencia in Cebu City.

Must a campaign rally be smaller than a proclamation rally?

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Junjun Davide, LP’s gubernatorial bet for Cebu, assured there would be no “hakot” crowd for Team PNoy’s campaign rallies in Cebu.

“We are not after the quantity. Di man ni hakot sa manan-aw nga audience,” Davide said.

Does this mean that political campaigns have shifted to media ads?

Or is this an admission of the lack of firebrands who can stir and electrify a big crowd?

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Team PNoy must have chosen to hold campaign rallies, which by their definition are smaller than proclamation rallies, so they could be more intimate with their supporters.

They first chose an open field in front of Talisay City Hall which can accommodate a crowd of 5,000.

But tropical depression Crising cooperated with them by sending rains so they can move to a covered gym in Tabunok which can only accommodate a crowd of 3,000.

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Politicians have to gather people to attend their rallies and perhaps listen to their speeches. Many of them have to be paid and fed.

The late senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, when he delivered a speech in a fund-raising dinner in the US for the cause of freedom in the Philippines, was quoted as saying that “it was the first time people pay to hear me.”

Team PNoy’s insistence on the “daang matuwid” may spell the end of the so-called hakot crowd or the “crowd-for-hire.”