Party machinery ‘no longer an advantage’

An official of the administration party on Wednesday admitted that having a political party machinery was “no longer an advantage” as shown by results of the May 10 fully automated elections, the first in the Philippines and Asia.

“The party machinery . . . doesn’t work anymore,” Prospero Pichay, the vice president for recruitment and membership of Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD), said during a press briefing.

Former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, the ruling coalition’s standard-bearer in the country’s first digital polls, is currently in fourth place with more than three and a half million votes, according to partial and unofficial results of the balloting from tallies of a number of organizations.

Pichay noted that most Filipinos were not aware of Teodoro’s bid for the presidency, saying that awareness level of the administration candidate was about less than 1 percent compared to those of other candidates.

“From the start, we were fighting an uphill battle,” he said, adding that people would be more aware of Teodoro if “[Lakas-Kampi CMD] had campaigned for him earlier.”

According to Pichay, Teodoro’s political advertisements somehow failed to reach out to most voters.

“We were not delivering the right message,” he said.

Pichay dismissed reports of electoral fraud, saying that it would only occur through a “conspiracy by the Comelec [Commission on Elections].”

“[There are] people who cannot really accept defeat. [These people] try to discredit the elections,” he said, adding that the election results were “consistent with the surveys.”

Except that the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party apparently was luckier than his eight rivals.

“If Cory didn’t die, Erap would have been president,” Pichay said of the apparently good fortune of the LP candidate, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd.

Cory iwas the late former President Corazon Aquino, Noynoy’s mother, and Erap is former President Joseph Estrada, the standard-bearer of Pwersa ng Masa in the May 10 elections.

She died in July last year and her only son Noynoy would shortly announced that he was running for president, citing a supposedly popular clamor for him to do so.

Pichay said that it was the “destiny” of president-apparent Noynoy to assume the presidency after the death of his mother.

“He got the ‘sympathy vote,’” he added.

Pichay said that Estrada would have been the current leader in the race for president race if Cory had not passed away.

The former president was running second to Noynoy as of Wednesday’s partial and unofficial counts. –KEVIN A. SANTOS Special to The Manila Times