Talking 2022 means talking about the elephant in the room that is Grace Poe.

It is clear to anyone who has a sense of how elections are won and lost, who has as starting point Duterte-Marcos’s massive propaganda machinery, who looks at surveys critically vis a vis one’s own political biases, that the only way to win this is to bring together the business sector, the middle classes, and the mass vote behind one candidate.

It was clear, since the 2019 Senatorial election results, that this would be Grace.

And no, you’re not talking to a Grace Poe fan. Search through this site and my social media accounts and you’ll see that I have had the worst opinions of her in terms of where she stands on oligarchs, at the same time that I have been impressed by how she takes the side of the transport sector and commuters in the Senate inquiries she’s led. This doesn’t make me two-faced. It makes HER a Senator, and it makes me a citizen who agrees as much as I might disagree with the people in power.

But that IS the thing isn’t it? The right to vote is tied to a sense of our responsibility to nation, not to the people we vote into positions of power. We are not their fans, or their followers; positions of power aren’t Facebook Pages or Twitter accounts. This is about citizenship and about having a sense of what nation needs at any given point, relative to the decisions that our leaders make for us, in our names, using our funds, regardless of whether we voted for them or not.

No one seems to see this anymore, and this is no surprise. Duterte propaganda has pushed even the most sane, most rational among us to turn to fanaticism and troll discourse, which is easy to fall prey to on social media, where people across Left to Liberal leanings have enjoyed deeper echo chambers. Yes, you will get leaders, from VP Leni to Makabayan talking about uniting the opposition, but none of that matters when their actors are first to engage in divisive, DDS-like behavior on public platforms.

Liberal actors throw around labels like “enabler” and “trapo” forgetting that we can list down as many from the Liberal side who are both, but more importantly failing to realize that this WILL NOT TRANSLATE to votes for VP Leni. It also only reminds us of the Liberals’ false purity politics and the moral highground that defined the elitism of the PNoy years.

The Liberals and the Ka Leody side have also discredited “winnability” as an important part of choosing a candidate on our side. This is silly. Yes, winnability and surveys shouldn’t play such an important part in who is encouraged to run. But are rules going to change just because you put up a losing candidate? Of course not. In fact putting up a candidate that is sure to lose serves Duterte-Marcos and no one else. Putting up a losing candidate is playing right into the hands of Duterte-Marcos, because they are experts at playing this electoral game and using the rules to their advantage.

You want to change the rules, you work on changing it six years before the next Presidential election. There’s no changing it with eight months to go.

Troll discourse, divisive behavior, discrediting winnability, and refusing to work from election data and facts, have been what we’ve lived with all of 2021. It was clear to me in May that unity was impossible, not with this set of actors that were leading the way, and no matter 1Sambayan trying to hide its liberal convictions (anyone with half a brain could tell this was a liberal formation from a mile away).

The social media noise and clutter, the culture of cancelling and trolling on our side, has led us to this point. It has led us to Lacson-Sotto, two (dirty?) old men who are classier, dignified versions of Duterte, both conservative, both militaristic, both representative of a misogyny that we have had enough of the past six years. It has led us to Isko Moreno who, for all the good he has done in Manila and despite good speeches, sounds like nothing more but budget Duterte-Marcos in impromptu interviews: the masa I’m-Juan-dela-Cruz rhetoric ala Duterte with no depth or vision, combined with the clean, good looking, educated voice ala Marcos. Kuya Germs would be proud of this performance.

It has led us to this point when no one wants to admit anymore, that our biggest chances of winning 2022 versus Duterte-Marcos-Pacquiao would be to have a Grace Poe run. She who is conservative enough (Cojuangco-supported enough) to get business sector support; she who is kolehiyala enough to get the middle class vote; and she who is FPJ, Susan Roces, and Ang Probinsyano enough to get the masa vote. She who has shown us her mettle with how she has dealt with the Duterte government’s disrespect of our transport works and jeepney drivers. She who was only one of two people (the other was Senator Nancy Binay) who didn’t do a Duterte fist when the 2019 Senatorial winners were proclaimed.

She who is in surveys regardless of whether she campaigns or not. 

If the goal is to beat Duterte-Marcos-Pacquiao. If the goal is a unity that goes beyond our echo chambers, that goes beyond our social class, that goes beyond our notions of who deserves this. If our focus is on who will win this with us who will not just be controlled by politicians and business (Pacquiao), that will not just sell our resources to China and kill us (Duterte), that will not just continue a legacy of violence and plunder (Marcos), that will not just be a variation of the misogyny and violence of Duterte (Isko-Lacson-Sotto), that will actually allow us our democratic rights to dialogue, protest, and freedoms back.

If the goal is to WIN this, so that we can finally really defeat the tyrants among us, Grace Poe is our saving grace.

Anyone else is a losing proposition, some more murderous than others. ***