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TURNING POINT: The Visibility Game

Column Titles 2023 20230815 170141 0000

NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental (MindaNews / 10 January) – The election fever is rising.  Politicians have already launched their campaigns even before the period allowed by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Visibility is the game. Many have plastered their faces on tarpaulin and staked them along the highways across the country.

The trapos, like Imee Marcos, Bato de la Rosa, and Camille, a Villar scion, were the early risers. Because the word “vote” or “elect” is not on said tarpaulins, the COMELEC does not consider their trash by the roadsides as campaign materials, perhaps, only a narcissistic trip, and thus allows their proliferation. The clowns are on TV, dancing stupid or saying silly lines.

But none can beat Sara Duterte’s effort on early visibility. She is a visionary in the game. Never hiding her ambition to become the highest chief executive of the land, the election of which will still be in 2028, she has been in the limelight for doing something or saying offensive statements like killing the President, his wife, and the Speaker of the House, catapulting her thus to national prominence.

This, and the alleged plunder of the confidential and intelligence funds, which is pushing her to the precipice of impeachment, though bad publicity, is still a plus in the visibility mileage – her deposit in the minds of the public.

Unfortunately, the magic of bad publicity only works if the publisher is legendary for impunity and invulnerability. The Duterte legend in this regard has already crumbled from the weight of the quad committee’s findings that Digong was allegedly the primus drug lord as mayor of Davao City up to his presidency of the Republic; that his anti-drug campaign was only a cover for his drug trade. He is now facing charges.

Moreover, Sara’s husband, Mans Carpio and brother, Rep. Pulong Duterte, were implicated as partners of Michael Yang in the nationwide commerce of illegal drugs. This public exposure of the alleged strong link of the Dutertes to illegal drugs is beyond the advantage of bad publicity. It is weighing them down to the abyss of filth.

That is why Digong reconsidered his run for the Senate and opted instead for the mayorship of Davao City, believing, perhaps, that his clout in the city has remained. A win is a breather. A loss means the legend is dead and gone.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. William R. Adan, Ph.D., is retired professor and former chancellor of Mindanao State University at Naawan, Misamis Oriental.)

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