The Philippine Online Chronicles

I snoop around in beauty salons or even taxi cabs. Who are you voting? I get curious on their choices. At the salon of the Makati commercial center, my hairdresser whispered “Villar is the most favored candidate here followed by Gibo.” That surprised me because Villar is not ranking in surveys of Metro Manila especially in Class AB. The makeup artist and the hairdresser speak in low tones careful not to offend other customers within hearing distance.   They discuss Noynoy Aquino’s dismal track record as a senator, and  that he is not charming. Though not surprising, the opinion of my hairdresser is quite common. She is rooting for Gibo. “I like Gibo but he is not winning.  I will waste my vote if I choose Gibo. But if I had to choose between Villar and Aquino, I'd rather choose Villar.”

I hear it from friends too. “Dick Gordon is in my short list but maybe I won’t vote for him because he is too low in the survey results. I don’t want to waste my vote.”

Whenever I hear these comments, I then ask “so now it is choosing between Villar and Aquino?”

"Yes, it is choosing between Villar and Aquino," they shrug.

The sad reality is, the winnability factor in selecting a candidate to vote for a president wins.

Winnability is favored over character, track record, and vision. Now would you mind people telling you that you are wasting your vote on Nick Perlas, Dick Gordon or Gibo Teodoro? Let’s see what these candidates have to say:

Dick Gordon is peeved on questions of winnability. Chito San Agustin, general manager of Biotech Philippines, Inc., believed Gordon is appreciated by “people like us who are educated,” which he said excluded “the masa” whom he described as “80 percent” of the voting population. This annoyed Gordon to which he said:

“How sure are you that I’m not gonna win? Let me ask you. At this point in time (in 2004) when I was running for the Senate, I was No. 29 in the surveys. And I got to No. 5 in the end with limited resources, with no Iglesia Ni Cristo, with none of the other things and I won, all right? Okay? I have never lost an election,” Gordon exclaimed.

Gibo Teodoro sees himself as not yet winning but certainly "winnable." He said what the Philippines needs right now is “a little bit of political understanding.”

“And we can’t have that if some people are stonewalled against others. I think that’s the most important thing that I can do. [Provide] some basis for an achievable working arrangement even between disparate political forces,”

Nick Perlas laments the same thing.

"Nowhere is this more evident than in their concept of 'winnability.' To win in 2010 means, for them, to have, from the beginning, name recognition, political machinery, financial and other resources, and endorsements."

Nick explains there are four fatal flaws in the traditional concept of “winnability.”

• First, the old is mistaken for the new and prevents the new from emerging.
• Second, and stemming from the first, it encourages negative thinking.
• Third, it is not complete and suppresses other more essential elements of the new politics from fully unfolding their power.
• And fourth, the traditional concept of “winnability” becomes static and therefore dangerous. It is blind to the reality that “winnability” is fluid and dynamic.

I believe that if we continue to view “winnability” in this traditional manner, then the political reform movement would be its own worst enemy, severely limiting and even preventing truly new politics from emerging.  Leadership in general is all about political programs and character, integrity and credibility. It is certainly beyond winnability.

So, who is to declare if a candidate is winnable or not?  Pulse Asia? Social Weather Survey? Media?

Or you?

Photo by author. Some Rights Reserved.

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