After the Team Unity of the election-cheater president was proclaimed in the Cebu City Coliseum, the Genuine Opposition (GO) also made their proclamation rally in the historic Plaza Miranda last February 24. Of the 12 senatorial candidates of the GO, only 10 attended the event making it a "bungi" ( a Filipino term for a "missing tooth") rally. It was already made known that Antonio Trillanes IV and Francis Pangilinan were not to attend the said event.
Trillanes has a more convincing excuse for not attending the said event because he was in detention by the Philippine Armed Forces. In his lieu, he sent his representative, in the person of Sonny Rivera.
Meanwhile, Pangilinan, who has declared himself as an independent candidate, refused to attend the proclamation rally because of a certain thing. He doesn't want to be viewed as an Erap supporter.
Pangilinan is an adopted candidate of GO. When he was made known that he was adopted by GO, he said "Thank you!". With that gesture, he was willing to accept the offer. So? Why would he distance himself from the opposition? His track record in the Senate is undeniably among the best. But, if his opposition stance remain in question, he is in risk of replacement (maybe, if he keeps on doing that!) by either Gringo Honasan, Zosimo Paredes or Richard Gomez.
Well, c'mon! This election is not about a proxy fight between Erap and PGMA. It's about choosing candidates who want to abolish the Senate (ironically, TEAM Unity's Senate candidates are running for the office that they want to abolish) and those who want to protect the Senate from the hands of PGMA.
In my 2007 senatorial preferences, I chose mostly from the Genuine Opposition than in Team Unity as what my post entitled "2007 Senatoriables: Who should win" said. The 2 GO senatoriables that I didn't like to win in the election are Nikki Coseteng and John Osmeña.
Nikki Coseteng is a good politician as far as my knowledge is concerned. She is an anti-graft and corruption, women's rights and environmental protection advocate. She also gives importance to arts as her special passion. But, her winnability is at stake in this election. Honestly, she's not too appealing to the people anymore.
Lastly, John Osmeña was used to be a Cebuano pride of the Senate. He has a magic within that made him one of the longest serving senator in the Senate's history. But aftr 2004, his magic fade out. He's too old, and I'll tell you my fellow citizens, he's ironically an anti-Cebuano. Why? He supports the move to break Cebu into 3 provinces namely Cebu del Norte, Cebu del Sur and Cebu Occidental together with the Cebu province proper.
As I am predicting, it would be a 10-2 victory, in favor of the Genuine Opposition. The people are tired of PGMA's lying, election-cheating and corruption.
Labels: election 2007, erap, senators
