Reset button

A picture is worth a thousand words, but the picture also depends on the angle at which it was taken. Last August, Momentum Research (Cleve Arguelles’ firm after he left) asked people two questions about partisanship.

The first was, how would you picture yourself: a supporter of the administration, opposition, or an independent? The biggest portion—67 percent—pictured themselves as independents, or not a supporter of either the administration or the opposition. As for picturing themselves as supporting the administration, 17.5 percent self-identified as such; on the other hand, those who pictured themselves as supporting the opposition comprised 10.4 percent. There were 4.2 percent who said they didn’t know or were unsure, while 0.9 percent declined to answer.

The second question was, some people describe themselves as supporters of the Marcoses, supporters of the Dutertes, and some also describe themselves as supporters of the opposition. How do you describe yourself? The biggest group was those who described themselves as independents or who didn’t support any of the groups mentioned: 45.5 percent. The next biggest group described themselves as supporters of the Dutertes and their allies: 28.9 percent. Those identifying themselves as supporters of the Marcoses and their allies comprised 11.6 percent, while those who described themselves as supporters of the opposition, such as former Vice President Leni Robredo, Sen. Bam Aquino, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, and their other allies, comprised 9.6 percent, with those saying they didn’t know or weren’t sure amounting to 2.9 percent and those refusing to answer, 1.4 percent.

The contrast between the two should lead to interesting discussion on the difference between party politics and personality politics: the “none of the above” cohort, based on the August snapshots, anyway, being enormous. The relatively small numbers for both “administration” and “opposition” sort of match the other, personality-based question, but the Duterte cohort for its part seems to have melted into the “none of the above” segment, which might also be a clue as to their thinking.

In terms of personalities, however, the way most people think is a snapshot of eroded cohorts, at least when it comes to the Dutertes and the Marcoses, though the “opposition” has remained remarkably consistent over time. It is also showing a near-majority that considers itself unaffiliated with the three major groupings they read, hear, or watch about whenever politics is discussed.

I often tell people that if Vice President Sara Duterte ends up convicted in an impeachment trial, one unintended consequence would be the first election in 42 years that wouldn’t be about, one way or another, the Aquinos (in truth, the Edsa Coalition) and Marcoses (in truth, the Marcos-Macapagal-Estrada coalition) or their proxies. Nor would it be exchanging that decades-old dynamic for a Marcos-Duterte confrontation, spanning the next couple of decades at least, because neither of the two dynasties has an heir capable of leading, nationally, at this point.

The various players might retreat to their respective bailiwicks and hold them, but there would be the chance that 2028 would be, for once, about tomorrow and not yesterday. And in the nick of time, too, considering the piled-up problems begging for some sort of attention, if not resolution, before we revert to being a basket case.

What would happen were the Veep convicted in an impeachment would be to turn the 2028 election into a real contest, considering the old alignments are all, in one way or another, either exhausted or directly implicated in the mess the country’s consistently been in since the pandemic. To be sure, the old players, plus the most organized parties (three of which are subsidiaries of the largest corporations), will all play a role, and they will be among the first to shift their attention from the current confrontation to finding a horse to back in 2028 now that the field’s been wiped clean.

Either someone will emerge from left field, shaking things up, or there will be status quo candidates possibly different from what came before in being less extreme, less able to promise big while giving little detail, than those who’ve come before.

While I personally wish for the administration to achieve the ultimate disruption by including an election for a constitutional convention in the 2028 polls, a shift to problem-solving instead of score-settling would be wonderful in and of itself. It would be like pressing the reset button; as I said, a means to look forward and not backward, for once.

Premised, of course, on a conviction in the impeachment, itself based on the assumption that the evidence in at least one of the articles of impeachment is solid enough to result in the Veep’s removal and permanent disqualification from office. There is a remarkably large—even huge—percentage of citizens who seem primed to keep an open mind, without wearing blinders based on partisanship.

—————-

Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3