Reality Bites: The indispensability of Marcos Jr

Eyebrows raised (including mine) when Duterte said that he wouldn’t give Robredo, the Vice President-elect, a cabinet position. “You know why?” he said. “I don't want to hurt the feelings of Bongbong Marcos. He is my friend. That is the political reality.” Robredo’s supporters got mad, running around as if the sky is falling.

It is politically risky to give Robredo a cabinet position while Marcos Jr is still considering to file an electoral protest against her.
Politics - student council politics, office politics, national politics, or the politics diplomats play within the United Nations - will always be a numbers game. If we stop whining and start looking closely at the results of the last elections, we’ll see why the feelings of Marcos Jr shouldn’t be hurt. Whether we like it or not, Marcos Jr is now an indispensable political force - and no amount of Facebook ranting can change it. 

Source: ABS-CBN

In April 2016, ABS-CBN published an infographics on the distribution of voters in the Philippines. Luzon has the highest number of registered voters, 56% of them inhabit this island. That’s the majority of voters. It’s followed by Mindanao with 23% of voters. The remaining 21% of registered voters reside in the Visayas. Who dominated Luzon? Marcos Jr. And he dominated it fabulously.

According to the information from COC’s shown at the COMELEC-run Pilipinas 2016, Marcos Jr was voted as the majority vice president in 13 out of 38 provinces, and the plurality vice president in 9; while Robredo was the majority vice president in 6 and plurality vice president in 8. Majority means the candidate got more than 50% of the votes; plurality means < 50%. Marcos Jr was also the majority vice president in 2 out of 7 NCR cities that have COC’s on the website, while the plurality vice president in 4 of them. Robredo was neither the majority nor plurality vice president in any NCR city. However, Robredo dominated Visayas. She was the majority vice president in 7 out of 16 provinces, while the plurality vice president in 6. Marcos Jr didn’t win as a majority vice president in any provinces in the Visayas, but was plurality vice president in 2.

Duterte owned Mindanao. He’s the majority president in 21 out of 22 provinces, and the plurality president in 1 of them. He didn’t do that well in Luzon and the Visayas. In the Visayas, he’s the majority president in Cebu, the most vote rich province in the country. He’s the majority president in one NCR city - Taguig-Pateros, while the plurality president in 8 Luzon provinces, 5 NCR cities, and 4 Visayan provinces.

If you hurt the feeling of Marcos Jr, you run the risk of alienating his HUGE following in Luzon: Abra (89.24%); Apayao (85.21%); Benguet (59.02%); Kalinga (69.20%); Ilocos Norte (96.82%); Ilocos Sur (93.05%); La Union (89.76%); Pangasinan (61.21%); Cagayan (78.90%); Isabela (74.72%); Nueva Vizcaya (66.76%); Quirino (64.23%); Nueva Ecija (55.65%); Pasay (50.69%); and Manila (53.03%).

And to quote Duterte: “that is the political reality.”