Who is Jessica Soho anyway? Yellowtards say she is a “multi-awarded” television “journalist”. But then so is Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. Indeed, the latter sports no less than the Nobel “Peace Prize” for being God’s Gift to World “Journalism” last year. That just about trumps anything Soho’s got. And yet, Ressa herself for all the support she and her Rapplerettes extend to the “cause” of Yellowtard presidential candidate Leni Robredo has delivered zero results as far as the latter’s winnability.
One wonders then what Yellowtard influencers and “activists” are crowing about. The fact is, Bongbong Marcos succeeded at knocking the wind out of what was supposed to be another media coup for the Opposition. The Jessica Soho Show ended up being no more than a lame exhibit of unprecedented political mediocrity. Such a sad cast of characters — a pale reboot of Cory Aquino’s “sacrificial widow” act, a disgraced homophobic boxing champ, a That’s Entertainment alumnus, and Senator Doorknob himself. It’s no wonder the Yellowtards are hopping mad. They were deprived of their entitlement to a Marcos lynching Friday night.
With less than four months of campaign time to go, it gets more and more difficult for the Opposition to be hopeful. All the Yellowtards are doing is upping the volume and frequency of their “Laban Leni” (“fight Leni”) cries. Putting more effort on a failed approach may not exactly be the smartest way forward at this point, but what are the alternatives? Petitioning Marcos’s disqualification from the elections and cancellation of his candidacy had been tried. Demonising him, calling out his father’s “tyranny”, and accusing him of being a thief had become a decades-long tradition. Conspiring with Big Corporate Media to deplatform him only forced Marcos to build a formidable social media machine and amass a vlogging audience on YouTube. Now, a stunt aimed to re-platform him on a GMA Network show hosted by Soho seems to have failed to put even a small dent on his political brand equity.
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Unfortunately for the Opposition candidates, the bigger objective here is not to compete with one another for second place. The objective is to present a credible challenge to Marcos. Putting Soho up on a pedestal benefits no one in their lot because Soho had failed to draw Marcos within scope of the Opposition’s arsenal. The only real way to win the presidency is to beat Marcos and it is when one starts to seriously consider this confronting reality that the individuality of each Opposition presidential candidate begins to become irrelevant. Ultimately it is Bongbong Marcos and his running mate Sara Duterte versus all the rest. There is no Leni, no Isko, no Pacman, no Ping. There is only The Opposition versus the Marcos-Duterte tandem.
In short, even this late into the campaign, the idea that only a united opposition can win the day for those who seek to prevent the Second Marcos Presidency looming in the horizon remains a powerful call. The irony here is that to prevent another Marcos presidency, the Opposition need to remove Marcos from their rhetoric and come up with a forward looking platform premised on Marcos being out of the picture. That alone is a near impossibility seeing that Martial Law Crybabyism is woven into the threads that form the very ideological fiber of the Opposition’s leading partisan blocs — the Yellowtards and the communists. Even if, by some miracle, they pull a rabbit out of a hat and come up with a brilliant no-Marcos-included narrative, getting a good number of Filipinos onboard the narrative — which means pulling a big number of them out of Marcos’s gravitational pull — will be an enormous feat of campaign engineering.
What can the Opposition do differently over the next three-plus months to give some basis for hope that an outcome different to where this election is currently headed can be achieved? This is the part where Opposition leaders and their supporters need to start applying a bit of intelligence and originality to their political craft. The challenge is clear. Come up with something that breaks ground and changes minds. It’s simple, really. Trying to solve a problem using the same thinking that created it is borderline insanity. Time for some sober thinking, people of the Opposition!
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
It was just an interview like any other. Nothing special was said to be honest. I still see nobody who deserves to be voted on as they seem to be playing for the same team.
The fatwoman show can not affect any election whatsoever.
The fatwoman is a presumptuous blowhard for believing otherwise.
It felt like a talk show rather than an interview. I doubt they could do a debate like how it’s done in other countries.
Did you watch the interview?
One word association game. Jessica shows picture of US Flag
Isko: Ally
Leni: American Flag
Jessica shows picture of Chinese Flag
Isko: Trading Partner
Leni: Chinese Flag
I am not making this up. Watch the interview.
And “Juan Luna” still thinks Leni can “catch up to BBM”? OMG.
Jessica Soho’s interview with presidential candidates is just another way for the contenders to further their political campaigns. It’s part of disseminating information for the candidates to explain and expound and convince people why they should vote for them. That is all there is to it. Of course, if one decides not to attend, like what BBM did, a believable explanation would come in handy to justify his absence. But so far, the two articles that explains BBM’s absence or ‘snub’ of Soho remains implausible to be believed.
In the first article, the insinuation was about the GMA network, from which Soho was affiliated, as attempting to set a trap against BBM. It was claimed that his snubbed of her was make big corporate media irrelevant in the coming election. That by not attending the interview, BBM may have, as the ‘first Filipino politician’ defeated the big corporate media in their own game.
While trashing the media in putting down the GMA interview there was also an expression of glee of BBM opting to accept Boy Abunda’s ABS-CBN invitation. That is strange. Question, between the two media giants that represents big corporate networks, what’s the difference?
Then comes another theory about BBM’s retreat from the interview. It was surmised that since it was unlikely that the interview would affect the campaign trend, the decision to cut and run was justified. It explanation was, there was conspiracy to deflatform BBM. A lynching was avoided when BBM retreated.
My findings:
Both premises were a deliberate misdirection to avoid what is very obvious: BBM, back up by the survey result, is opting to choose and pick the venue he wants to grace. He is very careful not to step into enemy territory to prevent unnecessary exposure on the forever issue that is hounding him and his family.
Was it out of fear or just playing safe? They are both, but the fear factor is really the one that drives BBM to decide to back off.
The allegations of corruptions and abuses might sound like a broken record to the point of boredom or we may even call it old news because millennials have no memory of it. Whatever we may call it, one thing is certain, the allegations and indictments will remain affixed to the Marcos name until it is addressed and settled.
Yes, even if BBM wins this coming May.
I agree with your findings. The key goal at this point in time is to win the election. If there is fear on BBM’s part that is motivating the decisions he is making as far as his campaign is concerned, then that fear is serving him well. Whatever works. Data-driven decisions and a clear-headed evaluation of risk exposure (and the returns on that exposure) is part and parcel of a scientific approach to campaign management that many would hope BBM is running. If BBM wins in May, that’s the campaign done and dusted. Governing the Philippines will be his next game — to which a governance strategy will be crafted and executed. For now, it’s a campaign game and he’d be best to focus on winning that game.
True, BBM has been able to, more or less, dictate how his campaign should run and how it should be handled to its culmination. That’s what experience can do to you. So far, so good.
BUT…..
The abstinence strategy will cease in effect when debate time comes. As we all know, all candidates has to have participation in the event because it is the gladiatorial-fight part of the whole process. Like it or not, candidates will be exposed, grilled, burned or barbecued in the heat of the moment and no one is exempt from it. Either they will surmount the battle or be eaten up by it.
In that scenario, like it or not, BBM has a very huge handicapped, for obvious reasons, compared with the others. His only solace is, he’s being a good speaker. Read that: speaker.
What he’s going to say or speak about in defense against attacks (from all directions) is another matter.
As the old saying goes, It ain’t over till the fat lady sings. ?
That remains to be seen. The other possibility is that left to debate amongst themselves, the Opposition candidates will further reveal what vacuous bunch they are. The only possible winner in such a scenario is Ping Lacson who is the only seasoned intelligent personality among the lot of them. If he wins supporters over to his camp, that will only mean a reduced voter base for Leni Robredo and not necessarily any of the Opposition candidates (and the Opposition as a whole) gaining ground from Marcos.
That’s another thing, the possibility of coalition to consolidate power among all or some of the candidates running to counter the Marcos edge. I say, if the race falls on a one-on-one set up, BBM’s polls advantage will evaporate just like that and a toss up is highly likely.
The opposition is well aware that a three-man race or more will be a comfortable race for BBM, that is why it will be no surprise if in the next succeeding days there will be an effort to coalesce (i.e. Leni-Ping-Isko for example) to stop the Marcos advance.
If the current configuration remains and another poll survey yields the same result in favor of BBM, it only means one thing: people never learned the lesson of the past.
Actually quite the opposite. A visible effort across the Opposition to “coalesce” to “stop the Marcos advance” will be more a surprise. There is so far no indication of any inclination among any of the Opposition candidates to step back from the race. That is unless, of course, I am missing something.
Therein too lies the whole trouble with the Opposition. Is stopping Marcos the only thing on their agenda? The fact that this is the perception they bring across may actually be the very reason they fail to acquire new supporters. They have nothing on offer that is forward-facing.
Is stopping Marcos the only thing on their agenda?
———-
Based on survey result, so far, Marcos is the guy to beat. That being so, the campaign strategy of the four contenders (Leni, Manny, Isko & Ping), not by choice but by force of circumstance, is now put in a situation that forces them to determine if their respective plan should either push through with the race or find some relevance in the process by giving up their ambition for some political consideration.
See, these people are not dense to realize what a lost cause is if they see one, particularly in Lacson’s case. I’m pretty sure that if the right offer comes along, the senator will forgo of his candidacy. I would even dare say the same with Isko. If the Leni camp could handle him with care, he can also be co-opted. I’m not sure about Manny, though. I think the pambansang kamao is teeming with too much confidence and pride to even think that his path to the presidency is getting narrower by the day.
In other words, we now have is a scenario where Marcos is the center of attention. He is the puzzle the rest of the candidates has to solve in order to change the outcome of the race.
To be honest, this is just a regular Jessica Soho Show. Just like her any other show, I just didn’t bother to finish the interviews. I don’t know, it felt boring, that’s all. Goodluck to the candidates tho.