2010 Configurations

Despite his single digit rating, many people still believe that Mar Roxas is one of the strongest contenders for the presidency. Given a two-way fight, Mar could very well give his opponent a real struggle, given his enormous resources and organizational machinery.

He's young. He's intelligent. He knows how to run the economy. And he's pretty respected among peers and colleagues alike.

Of course, reality is, there's no two-party fight come 2010. Given our multi-party system, there is that strongest possibility of these configurations come election time:

1. A Teodoro-Escudero or Escudero-Teodoro tandem for the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) in tandem with the KAMPI of Mrs. Arroyo.

2. A Mar Roxas-Legarda tandem for the Liberal Party, of course, with the blessing of Legarda's party, the NPC. Or, quite possibly, a Mar Roxas-Lacson tandem.

3. Estrada-Binay tandem for the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) or, if worst comes to worst, an Estrada-Villar tandem.

4. Villar-Noli de Castro or De Castro-Villar tandem for Lakas-CMD if the merger talks with KAMPI collapses. The Nacionalista Party of Villar is in serious merger talks with Lakas-CMD since last year. The possibility of them joining up with Lakas-CMD remains very viable.

5. A third force composed of either Pampanga Governor Ed Panlilio, General Danny Lim and other political aspirants.

In a multi-party fight, expect another minority president to emerge. In that scenario, an administration bet is sure to clinch the final spot, since it has the resources and the organization to boot.

For Mar Roxas to win in this situation, he needs to be able to differentiate himself from the pack. He needs to strengthen his opposition character since, he needs that to be able to position himself as a rational alternative to the UNO or United Opposition clique of Estrada.

Unless of course, eventually, Roxas and his Liberals decide to merge with Estrada which, obviously, is a possibility but not entirely viable since it would destroy efforts being made by the Estrada camp to prop up the former president for a second run.

I think that defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro is being made as "super proxy" against Roxas. He's being positioned to neutralize or get votes away from Roxas by positioning him as "young, maverick and a technocrat, highly qualified".

Teodoro's statement saying that he'll not run without the blessing of Gloria ran smack against Roxas' campaign strategy of opposing Gloria and positioning away from the administration.

Pang-inis lang or simply realpolitik?