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Congratulations Brother Vice-President Jejomar Binay ’60!
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How Binay did it: Chiz, Mar, seniors, frat brods
By Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:28:00 06/11/2010
MANILA, Philippines — How did Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay do it? Against what seemed like formidable odds, he emerged the winner of the vice presidential election?
The man himself invokes preparedness and destiny, plus a number of other factors involving his opponents: The complacency of the consistent survey front-runner Sen. Manuel Roxas II and the diminished ratings of Sen. Loren Legarda. And there were Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero’s endorsement, the pro-poor brand of his party standard-bearer Joseph Estrada, and the efforts of his fraternity brothers and sisters, his city’s sister cities, towns and provinces, and his fellow senior citizens.
In his initial news conferences after the voting machines started transmitting election results that showed him leading Roxas by hundreds of thousands of votes, Binay said he knew that he would be No. 1 despite the fact that his ratings were in the low single digits when the campaign began.
“Before God and before men, I will tell you that I knew I was going to win,” he told reporters in his 21st floor perch at Makati City Hall.
Read books
Originally a presidential aspirant himself, Binay claimed to have studied and prepared for the task, and to have run one of the most organized, if not the most organized, national campaign from February to May.
“I read six or seven books on the making of the American president,” he said.
In the process of narrating what he had learned, Binay cited former US President Jimmy Carter’s experience in seeking help from Georgia businessmen.
But he stopped short, thinking that he might be giving away too much. “Teka muna (Wait), that’s my trade secret,” he said, laughing.
222 sister LGUs
Binay, 68, began traveling to various points in the country late in 2007, according to his media relations officer Joey Salgado.
The trips were made at a faster clip in 2009 when local government units invited Makati to be a sister LGU and hosted the mayor for ceremonies in cities, towns and provinces.
When Binay attended the ceremonies, he took the occasion to visit other LGUs in the area, Salgado said, adding that Makati had “sister relations” with 222 local governments.
Sister cities share technologies and innovations in governance with one another. In Makati’s case, it shares its know-how in the computerization of government services. (Binay said that with its billion-peso revenues, Makati even shared resources with needy LGUs.)
“I mingled with the local governments,” Binay said. “This is my line of competency. I speak the language of mayors and governors. I can tell them the problems and what I did with the projects, so that we can take pride in saying, ‘These were successful projects.’”
Binay said that even if only half of Makati’s sister LGUs backed his campaign, that already meant millions of votes.
But he claimed that whatever political advantage he gained from the partnerships with LGUs was only incidental: “That was only an offshoot … I hope you would believe me when I tell you that with all the blessings that we received from the Lord, it was only right that we help needy local governments.”
Troubleshooting
Chiz Escudero’s role in Binay’s campaign was not confined to his TV ad endorsing the mayor as his vice presidential candidate, according to an insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Escudero camp intensified its involvement in the latter part of the campaign, when it realized that Binay’s ratings were not moving despite his network of local officials.
“The network was not being translated into voter preference,” the insider said. Per the insider’s account, this was how the troubleshooting went:
Taking advantage of the fact that Roxas and his people were not coordinating with local government officials, the Escudero camp began calling these officials as well as members of the House of Representatives to push Binay.
“The governors were the key … They were told, ‘Do you expect Mar to help you? He’s not even talking to you,’” the insider said.
The monetary support that was released in the latter part of the campaign, which appeared to result in Binay’s surge that culminated in a 0.2-percentage-point lead over Roxas in the last week, was not that considerable.
The important thing was the promise made—that help would come in the form of an increased share in the internal revenue allotment, or the LGUs’ share in the taxes they collected from their jurisdictions.
‘True volunteerism’
Binay said he had his brothers and sisters in the Alpha Phi Omega to thank for his victory. “The others have persons who campaign for them. I call those payroll loyalties. In my case, my brods’ loyalty is true volunteerism. We are 120,000 in our frat. And we have from governors down to barangay officials to start with,” he said.
Jokingly, he said it was some kind of “payback” after hurdling the rigors of fraternity initiation.
After his proclamation as Vice President-elect on Wednesday, Binay waived a news conference at the House that was supposed to be held after that of President-elect Benigno Aquino III, and chose to meet with his frat brothers and sisters who gathered at the lobby of the building.
Senior citizens
Binay also credited part of his victory to the support of senior citizens who, he said, had influence on some three persons in their family.
“This one, [my opponents] failed to [tap],” he said. “Senior citizens [number] six to seven million. I am a senior citizen; I can talk in the language of senior citizens.”
He added that Makati—which provides social services, even free movies, to the elderly—was the mecca of senior citizens in the country.
That he was Estrada’s running mate also helped, Binay said, dismissing talk that his camp had junked the ousted President.
“On the issue of helping the poor, our rivals were just talking about how to do it,” he said. “President Erap and I have already done it. President Erap was a mayor of San Juan and he was a model mayor of San Juan during his time.”
‘Caught napping’
Binay agreed with observations that after dominating the pre-election surveys for the most part of the campaign period, the Roxas camp became complacent.
“In the words of Sen. Serge Osmeña, they were caught napping,” he said. “In a way that is true because if you would look at the trend of the elections, [you would see that] they only focused on their own region.”
Legarda’s sudden decline in the surveys also benefited him, Binay said. But he said he had also managed to cut into Roxas’ ratings, which dwindled from the high 50s in the beginnings to just 37 percentage points a week before Election Day.
Binay actually led Roxas by 0.2 points—37.2 to Roxas’ 37—in Pulse Asia’s last survey before the elections. By then Escudero had endorsed “NoyBi” (Aquino and Binay).
Repositioning
A repositioning of forces at the end of a campaign is nothing new, according to Binay.
“Those are the realities of politics,” he said. “It’s not just the Liberal Party that experienced it.”
The Nacionalista Party’s Manuel Villar, the administration’s Gilbert Teodoro—“all of them experienced somersaulting, positioning,” Binay said. “And usually, the somersaulting happens when the supporters of an already losing candidate go with the one who’s winning.”
Looking back, Binay said destiny played a huge part in his political career.
“It just so happened that I was beside Nene (then Interior Secretary Aquilino Pimentel Jr.) and I was appointed mayor [of Makati],” he said.
More than 20 years after that appointment by then President Corazon Aquino, Binay is now the Vice President-elect.
“The one who they said wouldn’t win was the one who won. Destiny … it happens,” Binay said.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100611-274985/How-Binay-did-it-Chiz-Mar-seniors-frat-brods