Breakout

Every administration is a coalition often involving many partners. The Duterte coalition included the Macapagals and the Ejercitos even after it peeled away from the Marcoses; but even at its core, it was divided between those who gravitated to the former president’s partner, Honeylet Avanceña, and his real political heir Sen. Bong Go on one hand and those aligned to the Vice President and her siblings. So, too, is the Marcos core less-than-united: the President’s eldest sister has ended up ostracized, while their first cousin, the Speaker, has caused an outsized share of troubles, too, enough to get him ostracized, when you think of it.

Politically speaking, the Holy Week break used to be a time not really for prayer and reflection but rather, the prelude to the last push for the campaign. Some believed it was the time when the heads of families dictated “command votes” to their kin, and the time to take stock of what resources were left and could still be deployed, depending on the survey results. One thing for sure has changed: what used to be a weeklong media blackout has become a period made even more buzz-heavy by the viral possibilities of social media. This explains Sen. Imee Marcos’ version of a Hail Mary pass: her ad with the Vice President which will, hopefully, result in one side (the one opposed to her brother) embracing her, even as she, by doing what she did, has burned her bridges with her brother.

Few seem to think that Senator Marcos will be able to salvage her candidacy after alienating both her brother and his followers and the Dutertes and theirs; but hers, at least, is simply a colossal case of self-harm. The Speaker, on the other hand, can arguably be said to have caused the biggest reputational and political damage to the Marcos Restoration. His control of the House may be tight, but even for this infamously mercenary institution, the price of control has been all too obviously on public display through a national budget that has revived the formerly decrepit and nearly moribund ranks of civil society.

Even in pinning down the Vice President by impeaching her, the Speaker’s relentless investigations could just as easily have led to the Commission on Audit where, surely, stacks of documents could attest to culpability on the part of the Veep. Instead, the President found his warnings brushed aside and an impeachment dropped on his lap, giving the Veep and her father’s supporters a second political wind: political watchers obsessively tallying prospective votes continue to believe, for example, there will be enough votes to acquit after the midterms.

One survey has Rodante Marcoleta within striking distance of success, even ahead of respectable candidates like Francis Pangilinan and even Bam Aquino. But the “Magic 12” tailenders are closely bunched up and one item of conventional wisdom bears repeating: In the final push, the benefit of political machinery is quantifiable, one estimate putting it at worth 5 percent or so of the vote—enough to clinch victory in the tighter, bunched up part of the race.

If the administration ekes out a victory—measured, as it always has, by the senatorial results—in the midterms, something will have to give. A tremendous amount of political capital and energy will be consumed by impeachment—when, arguably, a slam dunk case for all sorts of malfeasance exists simply by poring through mayoral records—while the Speaker himself with his every move serves to retard the ultimate aim of a Restoration, which is much more than Rehabilitation, it’s Redemption.

Were the administration to succeed in impeachment—which it must—it would be a hollow victory indeed if the beneficiary were seen to be not the public good, but the personal ambition of the current Speaker.

The Holy Week break is the last pause before the homestretch of the campaign. The campaign itself has had two parts: the first, national, where candidates could both sell themselves and firm up alliances, and the second, local, where the intensity of local battles leaves little time or attention for national candidates, who have to hope they will be carried by local candidates suitably appreciative of support. After Holy Week, the surveys have already signaled which candidates are hopeless and which ones are actually in contention nationally: the President and his people can shine a spotlight where helpful, quietly marshal resources where needed (and starve those who are unhelpful), and referee fights that break out.