Among the current crop of Philippine Presidential candidates. Mar Roxas is, by all accounts, the cream of the crop, when it comes to ignorance. The following are four key reasons as to why it will be seriously hard for Mar Roxas to fix his already bad image with the voting public and therefore, find it hard to win the Presidency this coming May 9th.
1. Mar Roxas doesn’t have the “it” factor. Mar used to be blue before he turned Yellow. Now he is no longer his own man. In the Philippines, the “it” factor is whatever it is that appeals to the emotional crowd. To win the crowd, you need some kind of story the audience can cling on to. It’s either you are grieving, an orphan or a rags-to-riches story. In the case of BS Aquino for example, it was the death of his mother Cory Aquino that endeared him to the crowd. Roxas just doesn’t have that something that would appeal to emotion. He also tries too hard to get people to like him but ends up coming across as fake or not genuine in his attempt to “care” for them. His public relations stunts showing him doing what is supposed to be his staff’s job like directing traffic only proves he is not good at delegating and doesn’t trust his men to do the right thing.
2. Mar Roxas is not his own man. As evident in the way he handled the Mamasapano tragedy, he is prepared to hide the truth even in the face of injustice just to avoid any conflict with whoever he thinks can help him achieve his goal – BS Aquino and his allies. Likewise, Roxas doesn’t mind being tossed around and left in the dark by his own party mates even after he “sacrificed” his own ambition to keep the Liberal Party in power.
3. Mar Roxas is hot headed and cannot handle stress well. A few incidents have been recorded of Roxas getting frazzled and incoherent under stress. First, there was one where he reduced himself to arguing with CNN’s foreign correspondent Andrew Stevens during the height of super typhoon Yolanda about the number of uncollected body bags left on the road. Next was the video of Roxas berating Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez about the “requirements” the Mayor had to abide by before the central government can provide help to the devastated town. The footage provided enough proof that Roxas is not fit to be in a position of power. His penchant for insisting he is right even when he is wrong can spell disaster for the country. Aside from those mentioned, Roxas was caught swearing at a rally against former President Gloria Arroyo back in 2008 – something conservatives think is behavior unbecoming of a Presidential candidate.
4. Mar Roxas is married to Korina Sanchez — a potential gaffe machine.
PR liability: Korina Sanchez’s influence over Philippine media may prove to be Roxas’s undoing.
Who can forget the time Korina earned the ire of CNN’s Anderson Cooper during the height of super typhoon Yolanda? Cooper challenged Korina to go to Tacloban after she criticized the foreign correspondent for supposedly reporting inaccurately about the situation in Tacloban. It was not surprising that majority sided with Cooper since Korina was reporting the news from the studio while Cooper was reporting from ground zero – a more realistic vantage point. More importantly, Korina behaved unprofessionally when she used her position in the media to defend her husband DILG head Roxas against criticism from the international news organization that rescue operations were very slow.
That was just one faux pas of many others and there are quite a number of them. Unfortunately, Korina comes across as someone who cannot put her own emotion under control and could prove a public relations liability for her husband over the course of his term if he becomes president.
Roxas’s supporters say he has “integrity”. Clearly, they are simply talking about the way he deals with his own allies. Sure, Roxas can be loyal to people who are on his side the way fraternity brothers are obliged to be loyal to each other no matter what. Unfortunately for others outside of his circle, Roxas can be as tough as the nail he used to fix that school chair in one of his PR stunts.
To put it another way, Roxas can be nice to deal with if your name is Aquino but a bully if your name is Romualdez.
Footnote: Thanks a million to the one who put this together.
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