Vice President Noli de Castro's Coup

Tony Gatmaitan's prognostinations on the 2010 elections is fraught with errors. He says that in a multi-party scenario, the probable winner would be an administration bet. Yes, if the administration party successfully coalesce with LAKAS-CMD and field one candidate. But, what if someone spoils the broth and runs a parallel campaign outside the ambit of LAKAS-KAMPI CMD influence? What will be the effects of such a scenario?

There's a lot of buzz on the possible run for the presidency of Vice President Noli de Castro. De Castro has been topping the surveys despite the absence of infomercials or PR campaigns.

Recently, he topped the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys. There’s a palpable and stable mass base support for De Castro. With rumours of PLDT honcho Manny Pangilinan’s support behind him, De Castro is gaining more traction and more businessmen are re-thinking their options as to who to support in 2010.

If De Castro indeed decides to run and launches a separate, yet parallel, campaign organization outside LAKAS-KAMPI CMD, this will be a repeat of the administration debacle in 1998, and will eventually lead to a win coming from the counter-elite ranks.

In 1998, Vice President Joseph Estrada won 40% majority votes over the administration bet Joe de Venecia. Two things that Erap has under his disposal then---enormous government resources using his office and businessman support. Of course, there was this perceived “Erap magic”, a PR creation, which was useful only to the extent of justifying the win.

Analysts were quick to point out that it was not magic that caused Erap to snatch the presidency from the incumbent—it was a fractured administration party. Remember that De Venecia ran an election paralleled with that of former Defense secretary Renato de Villa’s. Ramos reportedly supported both campaigns, thinking that the more bets to field against Estrada, the more likely an administration bet to win. Their analysis faltered because despite fielding dummy bets (Manoling Morato, etc.), Estrada still won because of his powerful grassroots organization.

Aside from De Venecia and De Villa eating up the administration support bases, Estrada also ate up in their bases as well, because he was the Vice President at that time. Estrada used the V-P office to smash the grassroots support of the administration. If Estrada ran for the presidency without government resources at his disposal, he could have lost the presidency and allowed either De Venecia or De Villa to get it.

Now, Vice President Noli de Castro enjoys being in the same situation as that of Erap’s. He has many supporters occupying sensitive government posts. He has his own army of local executives who support him. And now, he even has support from the biggest telecommunications firm in the country.

If talks fail between De Castro’s group and those of LAKAS-KAMPI CMD, and De Castro decides to do it on his own, his campaign will surely affect the chances of the administration. De Castro will surely eat up the constituencies of LAKAS-KAMPI CMD. He’ll be the strongest bet but will eventually lose to an opposition bet. Why?

De Castro has the same constituency as that of Teodoro’s and Richard Gordon’s. His support base is bigger than Teodoro’s and Gordon’s constituencies combined. Gordon registers a dismal 1% trust rating while Teodoro’s is still being determined; but most likely, he’ll get at least 5% of the votes. Compare that with De Castro’s who consistently registers between 19 to 22% trust and confidence ratings.

Hence, it is critical for the administration to field De Castro rather than risk losing the elections behind a Teodoro or Gordon campaign. If De Castro becomes the administration bet, then, it’s a lost game for the opposition. A De Castro-Teodoro tandem is a strong contender against any tandem of the opposition and pseudo opposition. It stands to get at least 30-35% of the votes.

Should LAKAS-KAMPI CMD fail to get De Castro, and De Castro aligns with the Nacionalista, with Villar sliding to the vice-presidency, the only option for the administration is support De Castro through the backdoor and convince Teodoro and Gordon to just run for senate posts. For if they decide to field a Teodoro-Gordon tandem, they’ll repeat the grievous mistake they did in 1998. A Teodoro campaign will fold up under the strength of a De Castro-Villar campaign. While a De Castro-Villar tandem would surely crumble since it most likely get a measly 25 to 30% of the votes.

Of course, Villar’s expected slide to the vice presidency will not benefit De Castro. Villar does not have a loyal mass following compared with Erap. His endorsement of De Castro will not improve De Castro’s 22% chance of getting top billing. De Castro will have to contend with a Mar Roxas with a possible 25-30% chances of winning, should Villar slides to the second highest post and Ping Lacson runs as his tandem.

Now, it is also highly likely that an Escudero-Legarda or vice versa tandem would benefit more from this scenario than Mar's, if Mar's group would be able to prevent it.