Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson was Reporma’s prexy bet until this announcement.
On hour after Reporma’s public announcement, Lacson announced he resigned from the party. He was the party’s chairman after he was adopted by Reporma.
Looks like a lovers quarrel. Who divorced who?
oo0oo
That former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez initiated the breakup and Reporma’s jump to VP Leni is no surprise.
Alvarez controls, if not owns, Reporma.
A true tradpol, Alvarez can smell a win miles away. And Vice President Leni Robredo’s win is almost certain if crowd count in rallies were the gauge.
oo0oo
The race to the presidency is more like a war between surveys and rallies.
Survey groups had continuously reported of big leads by the son of the former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., over Vice President Leni Robredo in the race to Malacañang.
Leni, however, packs parks and plazas, even long streets, with people, and, at one point, more than 180,000 in that Pasiglaban rally.
BBM can hardly match the Leni magic in filling up rally venues while Leni literally packs them to the rafters.
Question: what is better gauge of popular support? Rallies or surveys.
oo0oo
Pancho, my kapitbahay, says surveys do not show evidence of its accuracy. ‘They are generally suspect to say the least."
Reports have it that Pulse Asia admitted to high possibility of distortion in the results of their survey, given the mechanics applied.
Pancho will bet his last peso in favor of rallies as the reliable measure of popularity of candidates over these suspect table surveys.
oo0oo
Manuel from Cavite tells of what he saw in the political rallies of both BBM and Leni.
Leni packed the plaza that can accommodate 20,000 with 47,000, by police estimate.
BBM hardly filled up the same place with some areas loosely crowded, unlike the Leni rally.
Gov. Jonvic Remulla, though, announced over 100,000 crowded the plaza.
Let’s forgive Remulla. He does not know his Math or was absent when computation for volume was taught in his Math class.
oo0oo
The same Manuel said, folks in his town in Naic, were promised P2,000 attendance fee. They were bussed going but returned walking. The buses that brought them to the site simply dropped them off.
"Worse, some passed out from hunger from among our group. The food promised never came. So did the P2,000 attendance fee," Manuel added.
"But someone reported over 100,000 attendance. Why so?"
His reply,
"then, someone must be very very rich now."
oo0oo
"There was a reported stampede in that BBM rally in Cavite. Were people rushing to get selfies with BBM? What happened?" I asked.
"No, not for foto with BBM. There was a big rush to exit from the venue as people were hungry and were in hurry to get home," came the reply.
They took down barricades and fences, in the process destroying public property.
oo0oo
Meanwhile, VP Leni gathered the biggest rally in the province of Nueva Ecija where over 50,000 attended.
Leni is now the country’s latest Rock Star, packing major parks, sports arenas with people hoping to see their hope to recovery from widespread economic difficulties.
From the looks of it, I see history repeating itself. PRRD had this momentum in his campaign in 2016.
Leni is even getting it better, as spirit of volunteerism is unbelievably high. It has the spirit of People’s Power that has made our country popular.