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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Roperos: Political matches
By Godofredo M. Roperos
politics also
OVER the Sinulog weekend, gleanings of political tidbits came into my information net which, to a certain extent, were reactions or amplifications to what I have already written in the past few weeks. For instance, I had already mentioned the developing encounter in the city’s two districts—the north and the south. I had said then that in my assessment, Rep. Raul Del Mar of the north appears to enjoy the upper hand. He is not only the incumbent, but he is perceived to have performed well.
On the other hand, there will be a return engagement between Rep. Tony Cuenco and challenger Aristotle Batuhan who almost “dethroned” the former in 2001 with the latter losing by a measly 3,000 or so votes. That result indicated a close call on Tony Cuenco, whose wife Nancy was the incumbent congressional representative. But Saturday evening, when I met Tony, and asked him about his impending return bout with Totle, he sounded very optimistic.
In his view, he is in a much better position now than he was in 2001 because not only is he the incumbent, Mayor Tom Osmeña is his political ally. He said that in 2001, City Hall was adversarial to his pursuit of the district seat because incumbent Mayor Alvin Garcia then was openly supporting opponent Totle Batuhan. And he appeared well prepared for the encounter, with a well-funded media campaign.
“This time around,” said Representative Cuenco, “we are in position.” He pointed out that the new ABC head Jingjing Faelnar comes from the city’s most populated barangay and most of the 34 barangay captains are with Tommy, “and consequently, me.” With these, he does not see how Totle would win.
In any case, Mr. Cuenco might as well just have added that because of the reversed circumstance in terms of support, Totle may not get as much financial support as he did in 2001. I believed then that he got quite a considerable financial assistance since his well-designed television ads towards the close of the campaign would have done Tony in if it had gone on for two weeks more. I could see then that the costly Batuhan advertisement assault on Tony, did shake the knees of the Cuenco camp.
Let us turn to the vice gubernatorial encounter. In essence, the contest may be considered only as three-way. I do not think that Nanding, joining the game as an independent, would be able to recapture his past glory. Unless he would be able to latch on to a gubernatorial candidate like his three opponents, he might not be able to make a good show.
But I have an interesting bit of prognostication from a friend who has a gambler’s mind, being a cockpit habitué. He played with the family names of the candidates, tied up with what he perceived as the psychological semantics of the voters.
He said Daan, in our tongue means old, meaning possibly obsolete and useless.
What about Sitoy? Well the sound of the name is similar to the Cebuano for puppy which, according to him, might be perceived by the public as cuddly.
Sanchez, though, is quite difficult to pronounce or write. “It rhymes with the word “lansis” in our tongue,” he continued, “which means to mislead, or to deceive.”
I had quite a laugh when he was telling me this. I asked him to do the same with the presidential candidates, and perhaps a list of the senators that I might vote for?
(January 20, 2004 issue)
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