The North remembered

BY ANTONIO CONTRERAS       MAY 25, 2019

SHE was one of the most, if not the most, maligned candidate in the 2019 senatorial elections. Aside from the usual heavy load of dirt thrown at her due to her surname, her critics found a new cause and pummeled her with her allegedly falsified academic credentials. Her claims to having a Princeton University degree, and having obtained a law degree from UP with Latin honors, became the lynchpin that made her a regular target in mainstream media, all on the pretext of fact-checking. She was painted as a dishonest politician with a problematic integrity. Daughter of a dictator, usurper of academic degrees — these are the images which her detractors painted to represent her, all designed to ensure her electoral defeat.

But Imee Marcos prevailed. She earned the votes of 15,882,628 registered voters, enough to safely place her in the eighth spot. Her weakness in the Bicol region and Eastern Visayas was compensated by her relatively strong showing in Western Visayas, Mindanao, Central Luzon and Metro Manila. The Bicolanos may have repudiated her, giving her less than 10 percent of their votes, but she holds the record of having the highest bailiwick support for any single candidate. The northern regions of Ilocos, Cordilleras and Cagayan Valley became her firewall. Ilocos Norte provided her a landslide victory that was more than enough to make her a senator of the Republic until June 30, 2025.

Indeed, on the day of the elections, while some of the senatorial candidates did not even perform well in their own bailiwicks, like Jinggoy Estrada’s poor showing and JV Ejercito failing to snare the top spot in San Juan, and Bam Aquino not placing first in Tarlac, the North remembered Imee Marcos.

Her demonization was particularly virulent, almost methodical, well-coordinated and planned, seen in the incessant attacks on her alleged dishonesty about her diploma, with Rappler, ABS-CBN and CNN even constantly reposting the issue in their social media sites on a fairly regular basis. But these all failed to bring her down.

Critics will easily paint this as a victory of the “bobotante” and as an effect of the erosion of values. For them, someone whom they accuse of dishonesty winning in an election is an anomaly spawned by people whose moral compasses have been compromised.

But what these critics fail to consider is that elections cannot simply be reduced into a morality play of a battle between good and evil. Voters take into consideration other factors, including loyalty to a brand, or to homegrown regional affinities. The political opposition paints the victory of the Otso Diretso in Naga City and Camarines Sur as a shining moment of moral and intelligent voting, forgetting the fact that it was a bailiwick vote to support the candidates endorsed by Vice President Leni Robredo who counts Naga City as her stronghold. And she was not even all that formidable. While seven Otso Diretso candidates and Gabby Bordado won in Camarines Sur, Nonoy Andaya lost the governor’s race to Migz Villafuerte despite Robredo’s support.

Imee Marcos may not be perfect. The jury is still out on the issue of her alleged dishonesty with regard to her diplomas, and we may not even have heard the last of it with her victory, considering that even fellow Nacionalista and senator-elect Pia Cayetano, from out of nowhere, and even before they were proclaimed, challenged Imee to finally face the issue. Imee Marcos has always been evasive on the matter, and has constantly focused on the work ahead, either as candidate during the campaign and now as senator-elect. She vowed to hit the road running, and to forgive her detractors. Typical of the Marcos genes, she would rather dwell on the challenges of governance instead of wrestling in the mud pit of partisan political wars.

But Imee Marcos’ successful run for the Senate is not just because of loyalty to a brand. She is more than just someone who inherited a surname. Her success is not just because of a presidential endorsement or of being in the right political alliance. Certainly, political and logistical support contributed to her victory. But more than anything else, and with or without diploma, Imee Marcos comes into the senate as highly qualified. She is a cut above the rest, even when compared to the veterans. She is factually the one with the broadest experience in executive and legislative work when compared to all the other senators and senators-elect at the time they were first elected to the Senate.

Imee Marcos held the post of national chairman of the Kabataang Barangay. She was elected to represent Ilocos Norte in the Batasang Pambansa in 1984. After returning from exile, she was first elected as a member of the House of Representatives and served for three terms from 1998 to 2007. She was elected governor of Ilocos Norte and served for three terms from 2010 to 2019.

The only other senators who can come close would be Richard Gordon and Franklin Drilon. However, both of them had no legislative experience when they were first elected to the Senate, except when Gordon was elected as delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1971.

Imee Marcos brings to the Senate a deep and wide array of experiences not only in legislative work, but as a direct participant in actual local governance. She comes in as the only senator-elect who has that distinction from among the incumbents and her cohort of newly elected or reelected members. And she would be the only member with the longest career of being an official directly voted by her constituents in both executive and legislative positions, and thus carried their mandate, prior to being elected as senator.

Marked, memed and vilified, Imee Marcos was targeted by the political opposition and the mainstream media to lose. They all failed. The lady from the North is now a senator of the Republic.

https://www.manilatimes.net/the-north-remembered/559431/