Cheers to the good one
Credit to Author: MAURO GIA SAMONTE| Date: Fri, 17 May 2019 18:05:57 +0000
ABS-CBN reported as of this writing: “JV Ejercito in, Bam Aquino out of ‘Magic 12’ in Comelec’s partial, official results.”
The news is a personal relief to me. JV is one of four candidates in the senatorial race that I openly solicited support for from friends and relatives (the other three being Bato dela Rosa, Nancy Binay and Francis Tolentino).
JV entered the race with solid credentials (no involvement in plunder or corrupt practices, with the Universal Health Care Law and the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act being among his recent landmark accomplishments). I had dug into his record of public service and came out with data that showed his sterling performance in his 18 years of public service. No need to elaborate on these records anymore; I did it on various occasions in this column during the campaign period.
What I think needs pointing out is that though he was one of those whose hands were raised by President Duterte during the campaign, indicating he was among the “magic chosen,” his ratings in surveys were below par. Into the critical phase of the campaign, the punchy pretty Pinky Webb, interviewing him on CNN’s “The Source,” pointedly told him his ranking: “15-18. Bumaba ho kayo.”
Pinky certainly had in mind that JV’s survey rating was on the downtrend, from 9-15 in December 2018 to 15-16 in January, and then finally to that figure of 15-18 in February.
“What’s wrong?” asked Pinky quite candidly. “To some people, you have crafted a lot of laws. Some people say, masipag ho kayo. Pero ngayon and’yan ka. 15-18. What’s wrong? Are you trying to figure out what’s wrong? Or is it really because Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is running?
JV appeared hesitant in his admission that Jinggoy’s running was taking a toll on his campaign. But I always believe in turning a bad thing into a good thing, and that admission by JV made me think of turning something nice out of the Jinggoy-JV Senate rivalry. If I could confine the fight within the classic Abel-and-Cain scenario — which was inherent anyway in the Jinggoy-JV rivalry — then electorates could be prompted to just choose on who between Jinggoy and JV was Cain and who was Abel. In biblical reckoning, Abel is the good one, Cain the evil one. So, people need only to determine who between JV and Jinggoy is the good one and who is the evil one to be able to vote right.
Sourcing materials from the internet, I crafted a video presentation with no latent effort to call for votes. It was simply meant to project popular likability for the person of JV — something I had earlier perceived as endemic in his coming into the world.
You see, in an interview with JV’s mother, Mayor Guia Gomez of San Juan, I gathered this very interesting aspect about JV’s birth: Guia had an affliction which made her able to ovulate only once in a lifetime. She and her spouse must hit it at the precise moment the ovulation came or hit it nevermore. That moment came in 1968 when Fr. Patrick Peyton brought to the Philippines the Family Rosary Crusade which he founded four months before Guia’s birth on April 20, 1942. The moment the image of the Lady of Fatima, carried in the hands of Father Peyton, passed her way deep among the hundreds of devotees that gathered at the Mt. Carmel Church in Quezon City, Guia felt that glorious tick in her belly. She knew it, and she rushed home to Joseph to hit that
Heaven-destined moment or not hit it ever more.
Nine months after, JV was born — on Dec.26, 1969.
Initially I thought JV missed hitting by a day being born on the same date as Jesus Christ, December 25. But, hey, December 26 in the Philippines is December 25 in Jerusalem. This means JV was born on the same date Jesus was born.
Then as I tried to piece things together about JV, I stumbled upon a photograph of him displaying his certificate of candidacy for the Senate in a pose captured by Rappler as virtually a reprise of Jesus’ own taken far removed in time and space. I thought of making a composite of the two photographs which became the lead photo of my column in the Feb. 16, 2019 issue of the Manila
Times. The title of that column was “JV, JV, how did you become a baby?”
Now, Pinky’s candid remarks that tended to picture JV as on the verge of losing evoked terror in me. What a pity to see a good man down. And so, on my own I did this little video containing the above-cited elements, with my column headline rendered in the vernacular: “JV, JV, paano ka naging baby?” for the title.
For whatever help it can do, I had the video uploaded on YouTube and shared to most everyone I could share it to on Facebook. It did merit some modest views and a considerable amount of likes and shares.
Nothing’s final yet though about the senatorial race. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that JV will make it in the final magic 12 as hinted already by ABS-CBN.
In the CNN interview, JV tended to attribute the drop in his standing in surveys to his zero television ads. This is not an accurate assessment, as actual figures would show. Mar Roxas, according to a reliable source, has spent a billion for such ads, but look where he is now.
Jinggoy Estrada has also reportedly spent substantially for television advertisements. It was very evident. But a recent report by the Manila Times placed JV beating Jinggoy in San Juan by a large margin.
It’s a nice feeling always that in the battle between good and evil, the good one prevails.
The post Cheers to the good one appeared first on The Manila Times Online.