He’s young, brilliant, idealistic, smart, charismatic, he topped the bar exams, he has a Masters’ degree from Harvard and he’s quite handsome, too. You would expect a person like this to do well in politics, but as presidential aspirant Gilbert Teodoro Jr discovered in the last couple of days, having all of these does not necessarily translate to success in the field of politics.  (Ironic too is the fact that the likely person to win the presidency, NoyNoy Aquino, is not young, not overly brilliant, not charismatic, do not have a Masters or Law degree, and he looks more like a computer geek.)

In the span of 10 months that I observed the rise of Gibo Teodoro as a presidential candidate, I noticed four critical things that might have had a big impact in him losing badly in the presidential race. Yes, I’m no political analyst but I do think, as a citizen with my own set of opinions, that I am entitled to voice out my opinions.

1. His relationship with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

This, I think, should be pretty straightforward. Gibo never really tried to criticize President Arroyo and that, I think, really hurt his image and credibility.

I mean, bad things will happen to your credibility and rating if you insist on sticking it out with the most distrusted and unpopular president our country has ever had. And bad things did happen to Gibo’s rating: most voters were already decided in not voting for him before he even had the chance to campaign because of his connection with the GMA administration.

And yes, I believe that if Gibo had won the presidency, he would not have been a puppet president of Arroyo. I believe that he would have acted on his own. But most voters saw him as an eventual puppet of GMA—even though the probability of this happening is close to impossible. And the thing is, in politics, public perception is everything.

Needless to say, this is probably the most damaging thing for Gibo’s candidacy. That’s why from the day Lakas-Kami-CMD proclaimed him as their candidate, I had no doubt in my mind that he was destined to lose the presidency.

2. He was unfortunate enough to have stupid people make his political advertisements.

– If you have seen Gibo’s airplane commercial, you would fully understand the point I’m trying to make.

It’s quite simple, actually. In order to win an election, you have to have the majority of the votes. To do that, you would have to reach out to all of the voters and make them vote for you. You focus on the people who are not yet sold on voting for you.

Imagine in this way: if you’re trying to sell orange juice, you have to exert more effort in selling the juice to those people who are not that interested on buying your juice rather than those people who obviously wants your juice. Gets ba. :l?

Anyway, here’s the problem with Gibo’s advertisements: the masa was not able to relate well with his ads. That’s saying something because most of Gibo’s supporters mostly come from the youth and people from class ABC. So one would expect that instead of focusing on these people (his supporters), he would focus more on the masa to increase the number of people who would vote for him. And the best way to reach out to these people is through mass media. Again, one would expect his ads would be made with the purpose of winning these people over to his camp.

But surprisingly, they come up with this advertisement.

What were his political advisors thinking of when they came up with this advertisement? (!)

I already saw the problem with this advertisement the first time I saw it: the masa won’t be able to relate with this ad. Because really, how can the masa relate to a machine they hardly know anything about? How can they relate to something they never experienced before?

I must admit though that the slogans “Sulong Gibo!” and “Galing at Talino” are both good. But the problem is, the credibility of both slogans were already lost long before the campaign period. “Kung magaling at matalino nga siya, bakit siya nakikisama kay Gloria?”

And I don’t know if you noticed it this, but this ad, for me, has Elitism written all over it. I mean, the Airplane? Gibo being a pilot? If you ask me, his ad team might as well have written the slogan “Gibo: Para sa mayaman” at the end of that ad, seeing how much the ad screams Elitism.

Another problem with this ad is that once you place this ad next to Manny Villar’s brilliant mahirap jingle or NoyNoy’s lame but effective “di ako magnanakaw” ad, you then get the sense that the masa could relate much better with these ads.

3. He rushed things.

– When other candidates had at least 2 years in advance to prepare for the elections (Yes Manny Villar, I’m looking at you.), Gibo only had less than one year to prepare for his campaign.

Also, I don’t know how people forget this, Gibo’s dumping of his old party (NPC) for Lakas Kampi last year was also done in a very hasty manner. Back then, he was kind of forcing Lakas Kampi to field him as their presidential bet over Bayani Fernando (and he was successful in doing so).

This leads me to the question: Why was he in such a rush to go after the presidency anyway? I think it would have been a lot more logical if he ran for Senator in this year’s elections, then as Vice-president in 2016, then maybe as President in 2024.

Did he think that he had the best shot at claiming the presidency this year? Over seasoned and deserving politicians like Dick Gordon, Manny Villar, and Erap Estrada?

I’m sorry, but I honestly think that Gibo was rushing things too much. He should have waited for a better time to run for president. If history has taught us anything, it’s that the presidency is something worth waiting for. And for the case of Gibo, he should have waited for it. You don’t go searching for the presidency, the presidency searches for you.

4.Benigno “NoyNoy” Aquino III.


– Let me ask you this, if NoyNoy Aquino did not run for president and the battle for the presidency came down as a battle between Erap vs Villar vs Gibo, which candidate will the majority of the 15,000,000+ people that voted for Aquino support?

Erap “convicted plunderer” Estrada?

Manny “Pekeng mahirap, C5 at Taga, PSE scam, at marami pang iba” Villar?

Or Gilbert Teodoro?

Most likely, majority of those that voted for Aquino would probably vote for Gibo, Roxas, or Dick Gordon.  (Yes, I know that’s me generalizing. But then, you can’t contradict me because this never happened. Hahaha)

If NoyNoy didn’t run for president, Gibo would probably have gotten more than the 3,600,000 votes that he got in this year’s elections.

****

Even if he lost in this year’s elections, I think the future is still pretty bright for Gilbert Teodoro.

He’ll probably end up somewhere in NoyNoy’s cabinet this year or next year. Also, I think he should run as a Senator in 2013, seeing how brilliant he is as a law maker. Beyond that, who knows? He can opt to run for the position of Vice President or President this 2016.

Most people I know think of me as a Gibo-hater, but in reality, I’m not. I don’t like him either. I’m somewhere in between. I like him for his soft demeanor and his ideas mesh well with mine, but I hate him for never standing up against a woman waaaaaay smaller than him, and for not doing the right thing with the Ampatuans when he was still the DND chief because of political pressure.

But now as we move forward, I’ll try my best to remove whatever prejudice I might have with Gilbert Teodoro. I’ll judge him for the things that he’ll do as we move forward as a country rather than the things that he did before. Who knows? If he does the right things if he returns to public service, I might find it in me to whole-heartedly support his future political plans.

But that’s me getting way ahead of myself. For now, I’ll happily rub the fact that Gibo lost in this year’s elections to my die-hard Gibo friends– it’s more satisfying that way. 🙂

PS: Umaasenso na blog ko ah. Nagawa ko na lagyan ng picture saka Videos. :))