New coalition to bat for patriots in 2022

by Jarius Bondoc (The Philippine Star), 17 Mar 2021

Diverse groups agree: the 2022 presidential election is make or break. No room for mistake. A wrong choice can disintegrate the Republic. National survival compels the groups to converge.

They liken the situation to post-War Philippines. The country was in ruins in 1946 when Filipinos prepared to vote in a new set of leaders. People were dazed from a million slaughters, and millions more maimed and raped. Emaciated, they had no clothes, no homes, no work. Reconstruction required visionary patriots. But resistance fighting had decimated their ranks. Many of the candidates were enemy collaborators. The latter had the money and motive to cling to power. Paid off by the Occupation while most suffered, they needed political position to elude prison for treason.

Two grave issues confront voters as May 2022 approaches. The COVID-19 pandemic rages on. And China is stepping up its grab of food and resources in the West Philippine Sea. The leader to be installed must have the knack and resolve to turn back the twin evils. He must bring demoralized Filipinos out of crisis.

Recession, due to wholesale lockdowns, is the worst since the War. Four million are jobless. About 950,000 small businesses, the backbone of the economy, are crippled.

People are hungry, President Rody Duterte concedes. Vaccines are coming in trickles. Senators exposed a P64-billion overprice in a purchase from China. Government has no more money for “ayuda.” No more ideas either. As daily infections quadruple, health bureaucrats tell people to not call it a “surge.” They advise families, even if of the same bubble, to wear face masks and shields at home. Mayors are made to impose 10 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew, as if the coronavirus strikes only at night, forcing commuters to jam-pack scarce public rides home after dark.

Enter 1Sambayan, a national coalition for good governance in 2022. “Driven by patriotism,” it aims “to install a full slate of competent, trustworthy leaders – president, vice, 12 senators – to lift the country from crisis caused by the current regime’s incompetence and corruption.”

Five convenors in tomorrow’s launch represent 1Sambayan’s advocacies. Nonpartisan La Salle Bro. Armin Luistro, a former education secretary, and Jesuit anti-corruption crusader Fr. Albert Alejo thought of gathering democratic forces against authoritarianism. They teamed up with retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio, former foreign secretary Albert del Rosario and former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, staunch opposers of Beijing’s sea aggression. In time, other eminent civil society figures, religious superiors, former officials, business executives and disgruntled Duterte supporters are to present themselves.

1Sambayan includes the legal Left Bayan Muna and the legal Right Magdalo. Heading Bayan Muna are former congressman Neri Colmenares and activist Renato Reyes. In Magdalo are former soldier-lawmakers Ashley Asedillo and Gary Alejano.

“Duterte won by mere plurality in 2016,” 1Sambayan says. “Counting the voters who did not fall for Duterte’s populist and authoritarian promises, he would have lost if there were fewer candidates who campaigned on more democratic, realistic and reasonable platforms.”

Gravitating towards 1Sambayan is the Visayas grassroots network of former Negros Occidental governor Rafael Coscolluela. Last month they initiated a signature campaign for Vice President Leni Robredo to run for president. The latter has yet to decide. Fed up with Duterte’s misogynistic and homophobic remarks during the 2016 election campaign, Coscolluela told him to desist or “settle our differences man-to-man.”

As its highest-ranking government official, Robredo chairs the Liberal Party. Despite having Senators Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon and jailed Leila de Lima, the LP is in tatters. More than half its congressmen have defected to the pro-Duterte supermajority. All its eight senatorial bets in 2016 lost. The party can revive through 1Sambayan, like it did when Ninoy Aquino ran for parliament in 1978 under the Laban coalition against Marcos dictatorship.

Former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier formed We Need a Leader-2022. Barnstorming the provinces, he is educating voters that the next president must have “brains, heart, courage and fortitude.” Curbing the pandemic would be relatively easy with basic science, Alvarez told Sapol-dwIZ the other Saturday. The bigger challenge is China in the backdrop of global geopolitics.

Who the leader is, Alvarez’s movement has yet to endorse. Candidacy filing is not till this October. From among the “presidentiables,” he intends a mass-based screening of character, experience and platform. The movement will support one and convince the rest to withdraw for a unified slate. With vote buying marring every election, Alvarez begs political leaders to spare the presidency this one crucial time in Philippine history.

A Duterte campaigner in 2016, Alvarez said the administration “has not met expectations.” After ouster by fellow-Duterte supporters in 2018, he left the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan and rejoined Reporma Party of former defense secretary Renato de Villa.

Drafted for president by several groups is Senator Panfilo Lacson. He is one of few national leaders most experienced in executive and legislative work. Lacson rose up the ranks to head the Philippine National Police before becoming senator in 2001. He is on his third senatorial term.

Awaited is word from former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. Expected for political comeback is former senator Antonio Trillanes.