It
is now official. Senator Grace Poe who appeared in minor roles as child actress
in his father’s two movies, “Durugin si
Totoy Bato” and Dugo ng Bayan” finally declared yesterday, September 16, at the Bahay ng Alumni at the University of the
Philippines Diliman her intention to run for the presidency. It is in the same venue where Fernando Poe Jr. or FPJ, the undisputed King of Philippine
Movies, also declared his political plans in 2003.
As
I have told you before, majority of the people of Occidental Mindoro gave big
numbers to FPJ gaining 78,688 votes over his latter-days nemesis in Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo who only reaped 34,267 votes compared to Susan Roces’ husband.
The question if our votes for FPJ could also be “inherited” by Grace Poe remains
a question. Our local Liberal Party members (Read: the Tropang Marangal) should work overtime to let the
results of the 2016 elections in the province be “full of Mar” instead of “full of Grace” or whoever.
Governor
Mario Gene J. Mendiola himself that is a living proof that empathy - sympathy vote is a
big factor in Occidental Mindoro elections when fresh from University of
California, he won as congressman in our province’s lone district in 1987 after
his politician father, the late Assemblyman Pedro T. Mendiola who served from
1978-1986 and was gunned down while he was delivering his speech at the plaza
of San Vicente, Sablayan in April, 1986,- just few months away from election
season. Not unlike Senator Grace, he promised then to continue what his father
had started.
While
Senator Grace Poe’s father died with a "broken-heart" because of the alleged election
anomalies which victimized our screen idol-turned-politician and ultimately his
victory was snatched from him, Governor Gene’s father died with his brave heart intact.
Deep empathy and sympathy runs unfathomable in the Filipino heart and this is what Grace Poe is
capitalizing on. She anchored everything in the memory of her father to get
elected. But Senator Poe admitted that her biggest capital is the name of her
father. In fact, before her announcement yesterday at UP, there was a showing
of emotionally-charged clips of Da King’s movies before she went upstage.
And
let us not forget that BS Aquino III himself is a product of empathy-sympathy vote when
he announced his candidacy after his mother died of cancer. Let us see if Grace
would also get the big numbers that Occidental Mindoro voters gave to his
father more than a decade ago.
The
realm of empathy-sympathy in politics is indeed so mysterious, at least to me…
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(Photo:
Philstar)
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