Presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio emerge as top presidential bid on Pulse Asia survey

Wazzup Pilipinas!

"Presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio emerged as an early frontrunner for the 2022 presidential elections, according to a recent Pulse Asia survey. Former Senator Bongbong Marcos and Senator Grace Poe are tied at the second spot."

That Pulse Asia survey, if genuine, really is concerning. But we should heed Camus’ warning in The Plague: “the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.” As previous polls conducted two Decembers before presidential elections show, it is still very much early days. 

The polls are snapshots of opinion during the survey period, not a prediction set in stone. Otherwise, we’d be talking about the legacy of President Manny Villar and the administration of President Jojo Binay. But the Pulse Asia survey, if genuine, IS a call to action. 

One immediate and urgent takeaway for democratic forces will be unpopular among certain groups, and will definitely be expensive: At the risk of being called epal (a strong middle-class issue), they must make themselves and their issues better known thru ADVERTISING AND PR. 

Much of what they need to do is PR in the old-fashioned sense: performance recognition. Some of the most productive senators are only in the 11-16 range (@kikopangilinan, @risahontiveros); this is a shame, and is doubtless partly the result of targeted disinformation. 

The targeted harassment of @SenLeiladeLima has brought the 2016 12th-placer to the 32-39 range. The sustainable way to raise her numbers, and those of others and of @lenirobredo too, would be to run ads, billboards, socmed with pre-election content. 

Our election laws have this loophole—and authoritarian enablers & pro-Beijing traitors will certainly use it. When democracy itself is at risk, should democratic forces avoid pre-election campaigning to avoid “becoming monsters too”? I think that means the real monsters win. 

Written by John Nery

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