A party in disarray

In politics, as in warfare, you can easily tell when a party is headed for defeat early in the game. This happens when confusion sets in, and its members are thrown into disarray. The result is predictable — you can safely bet that it will lose an election.

This is why in warfare, generals take pains to plot strategy that would sow confusion in the enemy camp. Winning will become a matter of course when unity and coherence vanish from the enemy ranks. This is also true in sports, and business and many other fields.

Such a situation is now apparent in the Lakas-Kampi administration party in the Province of Iloilo. The party is fielding Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro as its presidential candidate. But even before Teodoro’s name was formally proclaimed as the party standard bearer, its key leaders in Iloilo province had already maintained dangerous liaisons with Nacionalista Party bet Senator Manny Villar. These leaders — Cong. Arthur Defensor, Cong. Ferjenel Biron, Cong. Janette Garin — had struck deals with Villar, for which they received fabulous gifts, and promises of campaign expenses to come. Defensor, Biron and Garin had forged an alliance with vice governor Rolex T. Suplico, the NP provincial chairman, for them to abandon Teodoro at a critical hour.

However, secrecy is never a strong point for politicians, and these treacherous liaisons reached the ears of Teodoro after a while. After all, the military’s intelligence service is at his beck and call. And he has his own friends in Iloilo who sensed that trouble was brewing for this Harvard-educated lawyer. Teodoro knew he had to counter this internal threat. He understood that Defensor et all were unprincipled politicians who placed their personal profit above everything else. He had to protect himself from wolves inside his own party.

Teodoro hastily convened a series of meetings with his friends in Iloilo politics, notable among them former Leganes municipal mayor Josil Jaen, in Manila. It didn’t take long for Teodoro to make a decision — he tasked Jaen to be his gubernatorial candidate for the Province. Even if Jaen is a weaker candidate than Defensor, at least Teodoro figured he can count on the former not to betray him. With the entry of Jaen, the gubernatorial race is now three-cornered.

This move is a surprise for Defensor et al. None of them had anticipated Teodoro to make such a bold move. They had thought that Teodoro was their hostage. And this development brings problems for Defensor, Biron and Garin. At Teodoro’s prodding, the triumvirate will find themselves being scrutinized under a microscope by Malacanang. There are rumors that their pork barrel for the last quarter of the year has been stopped. These congressmen had looked forward to getting several millions of pesos in projects more before jumping ship. They have been pre-empted.

We can expect the situation to turn murkier in the days ahead. Defensor and company will now have to rethink about where their allegiance should go —- Villar or Teodoro? This will deepen the fissures within the party, and confusion will reign longer before the water starts to turn clear. By the time these Iloilo Lakas-Kampi leaders can sort things out, the campaign season will have started, and they will have lost plenty of territory.  It’s not easy to pick up the pieces and mount a serious battle. The momentum has been seized by the Liberal Party, and there’s little doubt victory is at hand as the Lakas-Kampi struggles with this problem.