#PHvote Week 3: Arroyo-bashing still the name of the game

MANILA, Philippines – She is long gone from the power halls of Malacañang, but former President Gloria Arroyo remains relevant in this elections, as far as President Benigno Aquino III is concerned.

In Week 3 of the campaign period, Aquino joined his handpicked senatorial candidates in Arroyo’s home province of Pampanga, which the Liberal Party calls “Aquino country” because it interestingly favored Aquino over Arroyo’s candidate in the 2010 presidential elections.

Pampanga was an important campaign stop, it would seem. The President made the trip in spite of the volatile situation in Sabah, a move that rival slate United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) criticized.

To Aquino, Arroyo remains the enemy he must defeat. Over and over again, Aquino has used this narrative that worked in the 2010 elections. He continues to paint the Team PNoy senatorial candidates as necessary allies to defeat her.

Before Pampangueños, Aquino defended his unending tirades against their Cabalen. “Surely there will be people who will say, ‘There goes PNoy again, always criticizing and blaming the past government’… But can we really just let it all pass? Is it enough to feel sorry for them?” he said.

Aquino did this just days after UNA visited Pampanga and refused to criticize Arroyo. The opposition senatorial candidates even warned that Aquino’s penchant for blaming Arroyo on everything could hurt his candidates in the vote-rich province.

‘Wasn’t LP with Arroyo?’

Arroyo-bashing first worked in the 2007 midterm elections, which happened after the “Hello, Garci” cheating controversy against Arroyo was exposed. A number of the senators who won Senate seats in 2007 partly — or, others say, primarily — because of the anti-Arroyo sentiment, are the same senators now running for re-election. Among them are Team PNoy candidates Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Francis “Chiz” Escudero.They belonged to the Genuine Opposition (GO) slate in 2007.

But how it will work in the 2013 senatorial elections when she is no longer in power remains to be seen.

UNA stalwart former President Joseph Estrada even cited former ties between Arroyo and Aquino’s now critical Liberal Party (LP). He slammed Team PNoy campaign manager Senator Franklin Drilon as a “turncoat.” Interestingly, he criticized the LP, but not President Aquino himself, for attacking Arroyo.

The Liberal Party was among the political blocs in the House of Representatives that worked to impeach Estrada in 2000. President Aquino’s political party would become one of Arroyo’s key allies until the “Hello, Garci” controversy in 2005, when the party decided to call for her resignation. It would become one of the most rabid critics of the Arroyo administration, taking positions against charter change and the supposed “midnight appointment” of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“If there’s someone who should attack GMA, it’s me and not them,” Estrada said. Under the Arroyo administration Estrada was convicted for plunder in September 2997, but Arroyo would grant him a pardon a month later.

Another UNA stalwart, Vice President Jejomar Binay, used to be a vocal critic of the Arroyo administration. The Arroyo administration suspended him as Makati mayor and tried to oust him from the City Hall. But Binay prevailed and won public support. He was also a stalwart of the Genuine Opposition, working alongside the Liberal Party, in 2007.

But UNA would not attack Arroyo. Estrada and Binay now lead a senatorial ticket that includes personalities who used to be associated with Arroyo — resigned senator Juan Miguel Zubiri and Zambales Rep Milagros “Mitos” Magsaysay.

Back-to-back in Northern Mindanao

On week 3 of the campaign period, both Team PNoy and UNA also campaigned in Northern Mindanao — a region that delivered for defeated presidential candidate Joseph Estrada of UNA against Aquino in 2010.

Team PNoy was the first to visit Cagayan De Oro and Bukidnon provinces, interesting the hometowns of political rivals Team PNoy candidate Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and UNA candidate Juan Miguel Zubiri, respectively.

Pimentel, expectedly, reminded the voters of the cheating in the 2007 elections that deprived him of his complete 6-year term as senator. He was only able to assume office in 2010 after Zubiri resigned as senator after he acknowledged that he could have benefited from poll fraud. He maintained he did not know about it.

But Northern Mindanao has shown to be Erap’s country. It is also a region that favored Zubiri over Pimentel in 2007. UNA’s crowd in both Cagayan de Oro and Bukidnon overwhelmed Team PNoy’s.

Campaign rallies are ground war campaigning that UNA stalwarts have mastered for decades. It’s Mindanao crowds were eve bigger that its crowd in Cebu during its proclamation rally. This is the reason why UNA is disputing the Social Weather Stations (SWS) that came out earlier in the week showing that Team PNoy candidates are leading UNA’s, 9-3, in voters’ preference.

Team PNoy, on the other hand, said it’s going to fight the 2013 senatorial elections in the social media. Team PNoy survey leader Francis Escudero was previously quoted as saying he doesn’t believe in campaign rallies. He believes that media will win him the elections. Administration candidates make it a point to jump from one local radio station to another. – Rappler.com