Fearing Fernando, Filipinos turn back to Arroyo
By Marco Garrido

MANILA - Slow but steady is winning the race. With just more than one week before the presidential elections on May 10, and with the number of undecided voters wavering at around 30 percent, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has taken the lead from movie star Fernando Poe Jr.

The improvement in her standing rests on many factors, which include the backing of a party that is impeccably organized and superbly managed. The electoral landscape has also shifted to Arroyo's advantage, with the opposition remaining divided and Poe's camp experiencing disarray, having failed to do little extensive campaigning. Unlike Arroyo, Poe's campaign is poorly managed; surrounded by the glitz and glam more common to movie premiers than political platforms. Moreover, Poe has emerged as a force to fear, forcing many voters to swing toward Arroyo - seen increasingly as perhaps the lesser of two evils.

When Poe officially announced his candidacy in December, Arroyo lagged around a dozen percentage points behind him in popularity. In fact, she was ranked third on most presidential surveys, behind both Poe and her former education secretary, Raul Roco. She has since steadily crept her way up the rankings, displacing Roco for second place, and, only as late as last month, statistically tying Poe for first. Now she and her chief opponent are showing different curves. While Poe's campaign appears to have fizzled out, Arroyo's continues to gain momentum. The latest surveys have given her a three-point, a five-point and even a 10-point lead over Poe. Pundits are heralding an Arroyo bandwagon. "And while it is said that it ain't over until the fat lady sings," writes Congressman Teddy Boy Locsin in the Today newspaper, "we sense powerfully that the fat lady has already signed a contract to sing at the victory party of the small woman."

The sheer mathematics of elections appears to be on Arroyo's side. What she lacks in raw popularity she makes up for in organizational strength. For one, her party machinery is formidable. So extensive is its infrastructure that, in many cases, her K-4 coalition is fielding an oversupply of candidates. For the 211 seats being contested in the House of Representatives, K-4 has 214 candidates, or a party coverage of 101 percent. In contrast, Poe's coalition, Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP or Coalition of United Filipinos), is fielding only 26 bets for 12 percent coverage. Arroyo's party also claims to control 60 of the country's 79 governors, as well as the provincial governors of seven of the 10 most vote-rich provinces.

Second, her campaign organization is unparalleled. Arroyo's campaign strategist Ronald Puno boasts contacts in each of the nation's 42,000 barangays (villages). "I have cell-phone numbers in every town," he says. "I can call any town now and find out what's happening there." And it is managed with exceptional skill. For example, Arroyo would time her release of campaign funds to provincial allies days before the opposition was scheduled to visit. In her speeches, she would consistently refer to a "down payment" having been made - outwardly, a promise to continue the reforms she has begun. But to political allies, the "down payment" was code for future rewards for continued loyalty.

Such apparent organizational competence sells itself to campaign donors, regardless of the candidate. The Arroyo campaign acts as though it intends to win, and thus, is kept well greased with the funds of donors anxious to ally themselves with a winner.

But even if her opponents could match her organization, which they can't, Arroyo still lords a powerful advantage over them: incumbency. And Arroyo is making full use of her position to promote her candidacy. Government agencies have taken out full-page ads loudly crediting her for having expedited their services; she has distributed health cards emblazoned with her picture, doubling as campaign propaganda; and to curry favor with the supporters of former president Joseph Estrada, she has relaxed the conditions of his detention, allowing him to stay at his rest house instead of inside a military camp. Her critics have taken issue - they have filed a disqualification suit against her with the Supreme Court for alleged abuse of presidential powers - but in the face of her ascendancy, their complaints seem more querulous than substantive.

Ultimately, however, her organization only partly accounts for her improved standing. The electoral landscape also has shifted to her advantage. Bloc-voting Christian sects El Shaddai and Iglesia ni Cristo are poised to bless Arroyo with millions of votes. Roco's sudden sick leave - interpreted as a de facto withdrawal from the race - has prompted defections from his camp to Arroyo's. But the biggest factor explaining Arroyo's revival has been Poe's decline.

The fear factor
Poe's vaunted electoral invincibility has proved to be both a myth and a colossal miscalculation. After declaring his candidacy, Poe seems to have forgotten he was running for president. He posted such a wide lead over his opponents that some pundits were already calling the race. The Poe camp assumed that he would be carried into Malacanang presidential palace by popularity alone and neglected to callous their hands with hard campaigning. Now, panicked and in disarray, his camp is paying for its complacency.

For one, the opposition remains divided. Ping Lacson corners a small but loyal percentage of the opposition vote. These are voters opposed to Arroyo but so afraid of Poe that they'd rather cast their lots with an unwinnable candidate. The Poe camp has shrugged off serious attempts at reconciliation - at first because of complacency, now because of pride (Lacson, on the other hand, has remained obstinately delusional about his chances). Minor hitches, such as scheduling conflicts and unattended mobile phones, have been allowed to torpedo talks. And now it appears that, out of sheer pride, the opposition will remain a house divided against Arroyo's juggernaut.

For another, Poe's campaign lacks organization. Instead of building a proper party, the campaign encouraged a cult of personality. "My party is the people," Poe declared. Unfortunately, he overlooked the necessity of having an organization to translate his supporters' love into votes. The basic exigencies of election day require organization: matters as simple as transporting supporters to the precincts where they've registered.

Moreover, the campaign is poorly managed. It is run by a gaggle of courtiers, really - family members and political puppet-masters - who grovel at Poe's feet and growl at the media. They have run his campaign as if they were promoting the latest blockbuster: all glitz and glib. They treat Poe like a movie star and cordon him off from those who expect a presidential candidate.

The Poe campaign's biggest liability, however, may be Poe himself. Despite his handlers' best efforts to craft his image, the campaign season has exposed Poe as unpresidential. He refuses to engage in public debate. He says little - even less of what he says can be understood through his mumbling - and what is understood sounds trite or, worse, suggests a terrifying incompetence. He has shown streaks of belligerence, threatening to punch a cameraman and humiliating a reporter on air by asking her to take over his speech. These incidents have soured the good faith of voters who approached him as an alternative to Arroyo's relentless politicking. They have eroded his following to the core that adores him blindly.

These deficiencies have cost him dearly. His campaign funds are drying up because potential donors see him as a risky investment. Groups that once backed him are defecting for the same reason. The Muslims for Poe have renamed themselves the Muslims for Ping. Blocs of the FPJPM - ostensibly the Filipinos for Peace, Justice, and Progress Movement, but really the FPJ (Poe's moniker) for President Movement - have had to recontrive their acronym in shifting support to Lacson. They settled for the decidedly less clever Freedom and Justice for Ping Movement, the FJPM - which one shouldn't confuse with the FPJM, the Freedom, Peace, and Justice Movement, a distinct pro-Poe bloc that, as it turns out, has also had to contend with defections. "They're making us feel that they [the Poe camp] don't need us at all," said Josefino Sanchez, an FPJM senior organizer. Even some of the groups that stormed Malacanang in 2001 in an effort to depose Arroyo and reinstall Estrada have bucked Estrada's choice of Poe and backed Arroyo.

A house of sand
Arroyo's lead seems to have sobered up the Poe camp with a start. They have dismissed the latest surveys as rigged (they used to brandish these surveys like divine mandates when they showed Poe was in the lead), mounted an offensive against Arroyo through negative ads (they once claimed to shun them because it was unmanly to attack a woman), and redoubled their efforts to coax Lacson's withdrawal from the race. True, Poe can still win, but his campaign's frantic activity suggests the flailing of someone about to lose.

Arroyo, on the other hand, can still lose. The surveys put the number of undecided and wavering voters at about 30 percent. While they could, of course, swing toward Poe at the last minute, it is more likely that they won't. It has become clear that, while no one in this race is really well liked, Poe is feared. The votes accounting for Arroyo's lead are votes not so much for her as against Poe. His candidacy has come to inspire dread in uncommitted voters. So they have committed to stopping him. This means that Arroyo's lead is built upon a house of sand, which, once she wins, will evaporate.

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