Frankly, it’s surprising how ineffective the camp of Vice President Jojo Binay has been in handling the corruption crisis that’s smothering him.
It’s so evident that the bombshell exploded by former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado took the Binay camp by surprise. Mercado was already all over the place before Binay’s fire brigade came to the scene. If it were a real fire, the building would have already burned down to the ground before Binay’s firemen could reach the scene.
Mercado was Binay’s vice mayor and close ally (now turned bitter foe) when he was mayor of Makati City.
In the past, Binay’s media minders were usually quick to the draw. No slight against Binay, major or otherwise, went unanswered for long. Letters to the editor quickly hit the newspapers or TV/radio stations with denials or denunciations of any criticism against Binay. Press releases or spokespersons were deployed to douse flames of controversy before they became conflagrations.
But the Makati City office/parking overprice accusation against Binay was already raging before his “firefighters” were mobilized. For a long while, the usual noisemakers from the Binay camp were silent, or at least ineffective in defending their boss/associate. And Binay himself chose to keep his own counsel, ignoring the whopper of a controversy delivered to his doorstep.
Mercado had a field day at the Senate hearing on the alleged Makati building overprice. There may have been some or a lot of exaggerations in his statements, but they sounded true and credible. He came prepared with PowerPoint images and an assortment of charts and lists. He had done his homework.
Which confirms that the Binay camp’s intelligence network was on down mode when Mercado was assembling his incendiary bomb. They should have gotten wind of what Mercado was up to. But they were caught napping on the job.
Binay himself didn’t seem to know what to do, how to handle the controversy, how to respond to the crisis. The American metaphor of a deer frozen in fear as it’s caught face to face with an onrushing vehicle’s headlights was what happened to him.
It took Binay’s camp a long time to recover, find their bearings in the swirling controversy, the surging vortex of crisis.
By the time Binay and his minders recovered their wits, it was too late, the damage had been done, he was already wounded. His survey numbers would tumble, giving hope to the other aspirants for the presidency in 2016.
Incidentally, the same dilemma befell President Benigno Aquino’s administration when they lost the PR battle over DAP — the Disbursement Acceleration Program — when they allowed their critics to take control of the public debate over that ill-fated initiative. Malacanang was too inept to, first, know that their militant critics would hijack DAP as an issue and, two, didn’t make any effective moves to counter the argument that DAP was just another name for pork barrel. The DAP critics succeeded in making the people at large believe that DAP funds were actual money handed out to members of Congress.
In the latest development, Binay’s snub of the Senate hearing last Oct. 30 indicated his camp is in disarray. They have no direct responses to the charges, just rants against the pesky senators on the Blue ribbon subcommittee.
But it may not be too late for Binay to recover lost ground. Here are a few thoughts: He needs to assemble a small group of savvy advisers who can turn around the crisis by devising a strategy to counter the devastating charges of corruption against him. He should seek out people who possess a working knowledge of how the political game is played, single-minded and focused on their work, and who can zero in on the problem at hand. He needs men and women of credibility, respect and gravitas in the political and media communities who can help sway the minds of the people in political Manila and the people at large.
He should expand his media bureau to include players who’ve been around, who’ve been in the trenches fighting political wars, and who use their heads more than their mouths in political firefighting. Meanwhile, he should put out to pasture the current noisemakers around him who succeed more in alienating than in winning people over.
If Binay moves fast enough, it may not be too late. But if he continues to be frozen in front of the headlights, he may have to say goodbye to his 2016 ambitions.
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