the attack ad memes that the Mar Roxas campaign needs – since yesterday

sometime mid March, we posted a chart over twitter for the Mar Roxas campaign. at that point there were many data points that were showing the Roxas campaign was not going anywhere. Roxas’ ratings in the polls were not going up.

in many of Mar Roxas supporters’ minds was the question – can Mar Roxas till win the election? and other questions like – what can Roxas still do to win? is it too late for him?

those questions were being asked of me over at twitter since i had taken the view that the Mar Roxas campaign was failing. having a weak campaign was a view i took since November 2o15 when i started tweeting about it. that POV was based just on an analysis of the Mar Roxas ad campaign and the resulting brand positioning that Roxas has taken. it was anchored the ad campaign and brand poisoning of “Daang Matuwid” which is the main weakness.

at that time in November there were still a few quantitative data points to support my analysis and point of view. but that changed by  February 2016 when there were already an avalanche of data points that showed the Roxas campaign was failing –  poll results showed he was stuck at 4th place in a field of 5 candidates and his ratings were not moving at all, it was flat within the 18% to 20% range.

 

this will deal with number 3 on the above – “air attack ads vs Binay, Poe and Duterte”. they are Mar Roxas’ opponents who occupy the first 3 positions ahead of  his 4th ranking.

at this point, Mar Roxas’ campaign objective need to be : add  supporters by gaining from and converting supporters of his opponents to his side.

he is 4th and at best has 20% in the polls. those will not win the election for him. he will obviously need to go up to 1st with at least a 35% rating. that means he needs to take 15% points from his competitors. he needs to convert that many supporters of his opponents to his side,

one of the most effective ways to do that is to air attack ads against his opponents. attack ads are ads that question the credibility, put in doubt the abilities and correct the wrongs said or done by Roxas’ opponents. the target audience are the supporters of his opponents and the goal is to convince them that they are supporting the wrong candidate and instead shift their support for Roxas.

today, we saw over at twitter memes on Grace Poe based on her performance during the last second presidential debate. these are “fact check” memes – these memes are correcting the wrong things that Poe said during the debate. these to us is a form of attack ads.

there were many more “fact check” violations committed by Grace Poe during the debate. and even much more committed by the other candidates, Rody Duterte and Jejomar Binay.

over at Twitter, i suggested to the mar Roxas campaign and Mar Roxas supporters to do more fact check memes on Poe and specially the other opponents of Roxas.

memes are cheap to make but we think if done well and in good numbers, it can be effective specially if traditional media picks them up.

attack ads are what Mar Roxas needs. they are not a WAWAM!

 

 

ads of Mar Roxas’ competitors that worked for them, hurt Roxas

Part 2.

 

 

 

 

 

the winning ads of the 2016 Philippine election : as of January 2016

in no particular order:

Presidentiable Jejomar Binay’s “Nognog” TV ad campaign 

there is a new version under the “nognog” campaign that was aired today but it is not yet available at YouTube.

these two ads were the start of the “Nognog” campaign and these ads are associated with reversing Binay’s declining numbers at the presidentiable polls and in fact had put him back at the #1 spot.

we were shocked when these ads aired. the ads directly addressed the issues of allegations of graft and corruption on Binay which have been on the headlines for many months and the reason for the dramatic declines Binay have been suffering at the polls. Binay was definitely on a steep declining trend when these ads aired.

after the ads aired and the surveys released covering the period of airing, the numbers of Binay spiked up. in fact they were a dramatic reversal of the umbers and placed Binay back on top.

the ad effectively redefined the allegations of corruption and graft against Binay. he has been saying these to the press and in appearances in the provinces but it really didn’t do much to change his ratings. that is, until the ads were aired.

we think what made this ad work was the term “nognog” that he called himself in the ads. “nognog” is a derogatory term used on dark skinned Filipinos that was often used against him by anti-Binay voters. Binay is dark skinned and short (pandak).

“nognog” is also something that most Filipinos can relate to. while it may be a negative or derogatory among the Filipino rich who are fair-skinned Filipinos, it is a fair and acceptable description used by the masses among themselves. its use suddenly allowed the masa to relate to Binay.

we think Binay’s “nognog” has the potential to be the “Mr. Palengke” of Mar Roxas when he resoundingly won his senate seat.

 

Senatorial Leila De Lima’s “Justice without fear or favor”

this just aired today. it was different and called your attention. you paid attention to this ad. it is highly creative and you do get the message. this ad  is able to give De Lima an excellent brand positioning among the senatoriables. this ad was so good that De Lima was trending on twitter after the ad aired. the Philippine Daily Inquirer also had an article on it at their website. this extra mileage is what you get when you air a good ad. this ad can push De Lima to the number 1 spot among the senatoriables.

what got us going crazy in this ad is the use of umbrellas. the story of corruption, crime ad drugs is plain to see in the ad. nothing really special about that. but what set it apart aside from the retro feel to it is the use of the umbrellas.

think about it – why did they need to do  a rainy scenario out of the bar? it is January, it is not the rainy season now. the only explanation is that they wanted to use umbrellas in the ad.

and to us, the umbrella is the symbol of corruption, arrogance and power tripping that we saw when Junjun Binay, the mayor of Makati and the son of presidentiable jejomar Binay was caught in a video being shielded by a bodyguard with a giant umbrella on a  non rainy night at Urdaneta Village when he harassed the security guards to let him exit the gate of the village while they were not supposed to .

this ad firmly defines De Lima’s band positioning – as the anti crime and corruption super hero, a role she fulfilled admirably while she was DOJ chief. this cements that positioning for her.

in some way, we think this positioning of hers and this ad has the potential to take away the thunder from Duterte’s tough on crime positioning.

the ad also has excellent production values. the cinematography, direction, lighting, casting and acting were very topnotch. its fun to watch!

 

Presidentiable Rody Duterte’s “Merry Christmas”

Duterte is a presidentiable that you either hate or love. and there is no in-between – either you passionately love him or passionately hate him.  but this ad you take notice and the ending of the ad makes you smile. do not know if the haters have changed their minds about Duterte, but this ad you like for its wit and unexpected ending.

these ads are not a wawam!

2016 Presidentiables Online Poll Now Open

Mar Roxas

Jejomar Binay

Miriam Defensor Santiago

Grace Poe

Rody Duterte

 

poll opened October 19, 2015
Rody Duterte added December 4, 2015

supporters abandon Jejomar Binay in mass exodus

there is no other way to describe what has been happening to presidentiable Jejomar Binay and his presidential campaign – his supporters are abandoning him in what can only be called a mass exodus. this is the PDI headline from the most recent survey from Pulse Asia:

this is a survey from Pulse Asia on the performance and trust rating of Binay as vice-president. this survey asks the performance and trust ratings of the top officials in the government from the president to the speaker of the house and senate to the chief justice. this is different from the election surveys that Pulse Asia (and SWS) have been conducting.

this survey asks respondents of their sentiments in the way Binay is performing his job as vice-president. people will be responding to that question based on what they think a vice president should be doing. Binay’s run for the president is not mentioned in the question that is being asked here.

the results were devastating for Binay – he took a free fall on trust and performance to his lowest level in the process losing a whopping-15% points from 58% to 43% of his approval rating on his performance of his job.

equally devastating is his trust ratings also nose dived by losing-18% points from 57% to 39%.

source : Philippine Daily Inquirer http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/727269/pulse-asia-binay-ratings-dive

those are very dramatic losses that will make any candidate or even a pollster shudder in fear. this means that on this aspect of Binay’s political life, people are very disappointed with him and that he is being abandoned by his supporters. the vice-president position is a very easy position to fulfill – because of the nature of the job, there are very little things to do unlike say the president or even the cabinet secretaries. because of the ease, the vice president in most surveys typically gets a much higher performance and trust rating than the president.

for Jejomar Binay to get a lower rating than Aquino in this survey says a lot about the huge disappointment that people have on Binay.

in a newspaper report, Binay questions the credibility of this survey by saying he has already resigned his cabinet posts when the survey was conducted, wondering what it was the respondents were rating him for his performance and trust.

Binay is mistaken and raises an irrelevant issue – the survey had asked the respondents on his performance and trust as vice president of the country, not as any of the cabinet post he has occupied and resigned from. respondents are measuring him on the basis of what the respondents think is the job and function of the vice president. as vice-president of the country, the respondents have seen his performance and trust dramatically drop.

in recent surveys released previous to this, Binay’s ratings have shown his declining ratings continue to drop. not only that, his ranking has changed from a high 2nd to either being tied by Roxas at 2nd or falling to 3rd/4th position. the ratings of mar roxas, the LP and admin standard bearer has seen his ratings surge up both in terms of numbers and position where he used to be a far 4th to now a tie at 2nd (posted here in this blog).

the questions asked of the respondents here were point blank – who would they elect as president if the elections were held at the time of the survey and who they think is a good leader to replace Aquino as president.

Binay getting declining numbers on these different surveys says a large part of Binay’s supporters are abandoning Binay in a mass exodus. they are abandoning Binay based on different dimensions of the candidate as Binay – on trust and performance as VP, as a good leader to replace Aquino and as presidential candidate. Binay is being looked at from different dimensions by the voters and in all aspects they no longer see Binay as fit.

on their own these are already dramatic and impressive declines. put that further into context, Binay used to be the top on all the surveys just a few months ago. he was all alone on top with no one even close to challenge him. Binay’s standing started to erode when alleged charges of corruption and plunder were revealed at the senate hearings. at the height of the weekly hearings, when it became vey apparent that Binay was mired in multiple corruption charges, Grace Poe a neophyte senator surged up in the surveys .

the voters saw Binay as the evil one based on the alleged charges while they saw Poe as good in an election that quickly got into a question of an election of Good vs Evil.

we have said this before. Binay should recognize what is happening to his candidacy, these survey numbers are real and representing real sentiments. the sentiments are astoundingly consistent from many dimensions. for him to change his fortunes, he needs to wear big boy pants and face the charges that have been made against him. until he does that, the declining trend will not change and continue until the actual 2016 election.

does binay have big boy pants?

 

 

 

 

 

Roxas surges up, jumps from far 4th to tie declining Binay at 2nd – Pulse Asia

Latest presidentiable poll from Pulse Asia shows a few things worth metnioning:

• Mar Roxas;s ratings surged in September to 18% from the previous 10%. that is an amazing +8% almost doubling his rating
• Roxas’ position jumped from a far fourth to now a statistical tie at 2nd with Binay with just a difference of 3% points. the survey has a margin error of +/- 3% points
• Roxas overtook Duterte who had lost ratings
• the gaps among the three, Poe, Binay and Roxas are now much closer in ratings than before
• of the top three only Roxas increased his ratings (+8% points) while not Poe (-3% points) and Binay (-1% points) deteriorated
• in fact among the top 8 politicians, only Roxas increased his ratings while the rest declined

just like the SWS survey, this Pulse Asia survey was conducted first week of September and the positive impact on Roxas’ ratings surge was president Aquino’s endorsement of Mar Roxas and Roxas owning and promising to continue Daang Matuwid. Daang Matuwid was what got Aquino to win the election by a landslide and has become the cornerstone of Aquino’s governance.

we are surprised at the power of Aquino’s endorsement and “Daang Matuwid”. we thought that would help but both have exceeded our expectations.

the value of Aquino’s endorsement come from the fact that Aquino is the most popular president of the country. and endorsement from him will help whoever candidate he endorses. Poe and Binay knew that and that is why both wanted Aquino’s endorsement. even Binay who is against Aquino had said so which on its own is a weird thing for him to say but he did.

Daang Matuwid’s power comes from the various high profile corruption cases that have been in the headlines for many months during the Aquino administration. that started with chief justice Corona who was impeached, Janet Napoles with her PDAF scam and high profile senators Enrile, Revilla and Estrada who are all in jail on corruption and plunder charges in connection with Napoles’ PDAF Scam.

aside from them. even vice president Jejomar Binay is embroiled in corruption and plunder charges that was in full media display for many months during the senate hearings. Binay being one of the presidentiables involved in corruption and plunder, the issue of corruption which Daang Matuwid is fighting has been highlighted this election season.

the country was aghast and nearly gave a collective puke every time the string of corruption charges were being revealed at the senate. there were many and each new alleged charge seem to be greater and more puke worthy than the last one. it was not lost on the people that Jejomar Binay was no ordinary government official, Binay as vice president  is  the second most powerful and most important elected government official in the country.

the country has in its midst the second most powerful and most important elected public official on whom alleged charges were being made that he was seemingly dirty from top to bottom and starting from the time he took public office in Makati allegedly including his family members from his wife to his children.

that was the scenario when Grace Poe came into the picture. Grace Poe was performing credibly in the senate hearings she participated in and the interviews she gave to media. she appeared to the people as a sensible, fair and most importantly clean elected government official.

as more of the alleged charges against Binay came to light and none of them answered and Binay and his spokespersons mishandling the situation, Grace Poe emerged as the exact opposite to what Binay stood for in the minds of people. that is the reason why Poe surged in the polls and took over the lead from Binay while Binay continued on his downward spiral.

Roxas at the time was just doing his job at DILG, hardly talking and not confirming his plans for the 2016 election. it is that reason why Roxas did not factor in the surveys during that particular time.

with Binay marred with alleged multi million and serial charges of corruption he was juxtaposed  against Poe who was squeaky clean. all of a sudden the 2016 election became an election about Good vs. Evil.

Poe being a woman who spoke in a measured and calm tone, with little make up, dressed casually almost always was directly compared to Binay a male whom the public pictured based on the numerous corruption power point presentations being made at the senate hearing.

it was the classic Good vs Evil comparison.

when looking at election polls, specially at the early stages of the election campaign, one should not just look at the actual rating numbers but equally important one should look for the trend. the trend is the one that will kill a candidate. the trend in many ways predict the future. in election polls, respondents are being asked of their sentiments and attitudes at that point in time that the survey is being taken. that attitude and sentiment ay change in succeeding survey points.  a trend describes the movement of sentiments or attitudes.

for the presidentiables once a trend is identified, that should demand some action from the presidentiable. a rising trend means whatever the presidentiable is doing is working in his favor, a declining trend means people are finding something wrong with the presidentiable. when that happens, the presidentiable need to change what he is doing or what he is saying so that the declining trend will first be arrested and then later on hopefully reversed.  for that to happen, the presidentiable need to do something different from whatever he is doing at the present time.

based on the polls as of this writing : poe is on the lead but trending flat; roxas is 2nd/3rd, an impressive climb and trending up while binay has decreased and continue to trend downwards.

are poe, roxas and binay listening to the trend?

 

 

 

 

triple whammy for Poe, Roxas & Binay in latest SWS survey, Roxas gains the most

Apparently there is a second survey for the presidentiables from SWS and this one puts presidenitables Grace Poe, Jejomar Binay and Mar Roxas practically on a there-way tie.

The survey was conducted Septemebr 2 to 5, 2105 and has the following ratings for the three presidentiables :

• Grace Poe : 26%
• Jemomar Binay : 24% (difference vs Poe – 2% points) 
• Mar Roxas : 20% (dofference vs Binay – 4% points)

(source : http://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/106788-sws-survey-breakdown-presidential-tie)

With a margin of error at +/- 3%, Poe and Binay are on a statistical tie while  Roxas  vs Binay with a difference of 4% points is statistically significant but  it being just shy by 1% point, that is considered a statistical tie.

unlike the other SWS survey which was an options survey (respondents were asked to name 3 candidates who can replace Aquino), this is a real elections survey where respondents were asked to identify only 1 candidate who they might vote as president if the elections were held during the time of the survey.

this survey gave a triple whammy to all three presdientiables Poe, Binay and Roxas.

1st whammy – this is the biggest whammy and it is for the benefit of Mar Roxas. mar roxas before this survey was a far third to Poe and Binay. roxas jumping to tie the front runners is a big jump for roxas. this mimics the same kind of giant improvement that Roxas got in the other SWS survey where he got a +18% point improvement catapulting him to 2nd position (read here: http://wp.me/pnw03-1W0).

this shows Roxas is a legitimate contender in the election and is on an impressive increasing trend. the increasing trend will serve Roxas well as we move to the actual election in 2016, this means Roxas is building his support base at the same time the support base of Poe and Binay are not moving if not weakening.

2nd whammy – this one hurts Garce Poe. Poe in previous surveys showed she was way ahead of the others and was a clear leader. this survey with two of her rivals catching up with her shows she is not invincible. it says she can be beaten.

3rd whammy – this hurts Jejomar Binay. Binay used to be the runaway winner in the polls but his ratings have been suffering and was on a massive declining trend since the corruption and plunder charges have been exposed in the senate. Binay just getting  a tie with the two others means Binay has not arrested his declining trend and continue to suffer in the polls.

unless Binay changes things, like address the corruption and plunder charges against him, the declining trend will continue and his numbers will shrink significantly by election time. it is possible that the shrinkage will be big enough that the other leaders will overtake him.

Roxas’ ratings have gone up driven by the endorsement of President Aquino for his presidentiable run and Roxas’ declaring that he will continue Aquino’s “Daang Matuwid”. Aquino endorsed Roxas’ presidential run in an event held at Club Filipino on August 30, 2015. Roxas also ran ads almost the next day where he said he will continue Aquino’s “Dang Matuwid”.

Roxas has gained the momentum from this survey and will allow him to enlarge his support base.

Poe will need to work harder to get back her stellar number one position. Let us see if her numbers will improve on the next survey behind her announcement that she will run for president in an event that happened after this survey was conducted.

——–

Question On Methodology & Design For SWS :

we noticed that the two presidentiables surveys, the options survey and this election survey were run on the same time period. did that mean the questions for the these two separate surveys were in one questionnaire and both were asked of the respondents in the same sitting?

if so, was there no order bias in their answers? 

i would think there would be order bias and one or both of the answers of the respondents will be affected by the other. it would be difficult to accept the survey results if there was order bias. 

Roxas catapults to #2, beats Binay, all behind Aquino’s endorsement and “Daang Matuwid”

latest SWS presidentiables poll for the 2016 election has put a dazzling surprise – Mar Roxas an erstwhile low 3rd in the previous survey has jumped to 2nd place and in the process pushing down Jejomar Binay to 3rd.

not only the improvement in ranking was the big surprise, the numbers are amazing, from the previous poll putting roxas at 21%, roxas catapulted to 39%, a giant leap of +18%.

binay who used to be 2nd now sits at 35%, almost the same as the previous poll at 34%. the 1% point difference is not statistically significant.

source : http://www.sws.org.ph

however, roxas’ lead over binay, +4% points is statistically significant from binay with the +/- 3% points margin of error.

what happened? what caused the phenomenal increase in rating and standing of mar roxas?

we think what drove the impressive increase is the endorsement of president aquino of roxas’ candidacy to the presidency. the SWS survey was conducted  september 2 to 5 which was very close to the announcement of Aquino’s endorsement of Roxas that happened on july 31, 2015 at club filipino. it was a big event as it got full media coverage and was in the news that evening and succeeding days. it has been highly speculated that aquino will endorse roxas, the actual announcement was highly anticipated by everyone.

aquino is the country’s most popular president. no other president was able to gain the kind of very high ratings that aquino has gotten. this high level began at the start of his presidency and was continued on through the years. even aquino’s low ratings were much higher than arroyo’s ratings which almost always stayed on the negative. arroyo is one of the country’s most unpopular president while aquino is the country’s most popular president.

the incumbent president’s endorsement seem to have a lot of power, negative or positive,  in philippine politics.

president arroyo endorsed gibo teodoro but since arroyo was one of the country’s most unpopular president, that endorsement became a kiss of death for teodoro.

cory aquino’s endorsement of fidel ramos we think was one of the reasons ramos got elected. cory was and is one of the country’s most popular and beloved presidents. today, cory is considered a hero by many.

aside from aquino’s endorsement, we think the other driver for roxas’ surge in the polls is “daang matuwid”. daang matuwid was the campaign platform of noynoy aquino when he ran for the presidency, one that he won on a landslide. aside from the 2010 campaign, this was also used by aquino as central and often the headline of aquino’s governance.

right after the endorsement of aquino, roxas immediately proclaimed that he will continue “daang matuwid” and in fact Roxas ran TV ads on “daang matuwid” one day after he was endorsed by aquino.  in speeches aquino identified roxas as the person who he thinks will continue and has the competence to continue “daang matuwid”.

corruption in government which daang matuwid is going against appear to continue to be a top issue among voters. it also helps one of the key aspirants for the presidency is being alleged as a serial and multiple corrupt government official, vp jejomar binay. binay to this day has not answered or made  an effort to dispel the alleged charges of corruption.

this is turn is perhaps the reason why binay has been sliding in the polls. binay’s drop to third is the second for binay. he used to be at the top of the polls before the alleged corruption charges were revealed at the senate,

we had underestimated the power of president aquino as endorser and the idea of “daang matuwid”. we expected improvements but we dd not see it happening in this grand scale.

the momentum is with roxas. poe’s momentum has been stopped and binay may have stabilized. a continuing surge by roxas and a decline in base support for poe and binay can win him the presidency.

 

 

 

Mar Roxas to get boost from President Aquino’s rising popularity

Aquino satisfaction best since Q1 2014

PUBLIC SATISFACTION with President Benigno S. C. Aquino III hit its highest point in one-and-a-half years this quarter, fueled by significant improvements in most geographical areas except Mindanao and across socioeconomic classes except ABC, according to results of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

read more here : http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=TopStory&title=aquino-satisfaction-best-since-q1-2014&id=115452

latest poll shows president aquino’s net satisfaction rating is on the rise, highest since Q1 2014 according to SWS as published at Business World. this confirms once again that president aquino is the country’s most popular president.

this rise in satisfaction rating comes at a great time for Mar Roxas who recently had announced he is running for president under the LP. this is a benefit to Roxas as Aquino has endorsed Roxas’ run for the presidency.

Roxas has declared he is ready for the presidency and accepts the challenge of continuing Aquino’s “daang matuwid” governance and the platform by which aquino won the election by a landslide.

the “daang matuwid” and aquino’s rising popularity is in contrast to the continuing unanswered graft and corruption charges against Roxas’ main rival for the presidency VP Jejomar Binay.

Roxas is a far third in the latest polls although he has recovered significantly in the latest poll from the previous. Aquino’s endorsement of Roxas may give Roxas the push to challenge the leader Poe and the previous leader Binay. Poe now leads the polls, followed by Binay and Roxas at third.

the latest presdientiables surveys will be released soon, lets see how this all plays out for Roxas.

mon ilagan : how not to be the spokesman of the embattled Jejomar Binay

mon iligan, previously from media who was also a congressman from some district was recently appointed spokesman for presidentiable jejomar binay and as we sometimes read also of UNA. he replaced a long list of previous  spokespersons of binay  – congressman jonvic remulla, congressman toby tango and atty jv bautista.

the way we see it, the previous spokespersons of presidentiable binay screwed up or in the case of remulla, maybe he got tired defending the indefensible  binay. tango appear to have been fired from being binay’s spokesman after the residency issue on grace poe was raised by tiangco which had terribly backfired on binay.

mon ilagan is new to his job. but this early, we think he  committed a grave error in his job as spokesman for the embattled  binay.

this came out on twitter :

that “release” has a few things that are wrong with it.

an important basic in being a spokesperson – you are one for another person. as a spokesperson, you speak for your principal who in this case is presidentiable binay. when ilagan opens his mouth, he is speaking the words of presidentiable binay. it is like binay himself talking.

the twitter release was not about binay talking, it was mon ilagan talking about himself, what he thinks, not what binay wants the voters to know and not what binay thinks. the release even has ilagan’s role “UNA spokesman”.

more than mon ilagan being a spokesman for himself, the bigger issue we have with the twitter release is its content. ilagan’s press release about what he wants voters to know about his thouhgts has two parts – the first part is how he sees binay, “I believe in Binay’s capabilities as a leader” and the second part “despite the allegations and issues against him”.

being the spokesman and his salary being paid for by binay, the first part is not surprising. the surprising part is the second part.

in the second part, ilagan actually admits binay has problems – “allegations and issues” against binay.   ilagan is referring to the corruption and dishonesty allegations and issues that have stuck on binay. ilagan is probably the first spokesperson who admitted his principal, binay has problems. he is admitting that binay is damaged goods.

that is a very unusual and very wrong thing to say about your principal if you are a spokesperson. ilagan is reminding the people the allegations being raised against binay. he casted doubt on his own principal, the person he is supposed to speak for and promote.

it is a very strange sales pitch – buy this product even though something is wrong with it. we do not think a lot of people will want to buy a product like that.

in this one, mon ilagan, a spokesman for binay fails in his job – for talking about himself and his thoughts rather than putting forward the thoughts of his principal and for admitting something is wrong with the very product that he is selling to the voters.

it’s a WAWAM!

in picking a fight with Aquino, Binay gets a truckload of rocks and hits his head with each rock

this is the kindest way to describe what VP Binay just did – he shot himself in the foot in picking a fight with president aquino. we see no strategic value or benefit for him or even any tactical advantage for his presidential campaign. all it has given him are more problems and harm. 

• one of the important things you do for a political campaign is to build coalitions and expand your support base. this is probably one of the top 3 important things that need to be done in a political campaign. elections are won by having the most number of votes compared to your competitors. building coalitions and getting the biggest number of support base is a must, you assign this task to someone in your team to focus on it to make sure you are successful at it,
• by attacking president aquino, presidential binay did not only not do the above, he actually did the exact opposite of it – binay added another enemy to his already long list of enemies. binay is being attacked by many from all sides mainly as a result of the graft and corruption allegations that have been in full display on national TV at the senate. for many months now, most of what binay, his spokespersons and his children have been doing is deflect the mud and slime that has accumulated on binay’s  face. they have been unsuccessful and they need aquino as an enemy like they need a bullet in their heads.
• inviting aquino as an enemy is to say the least a very unfortunate and highly ill-advised choice. noynoy aquino is the country’s most popular president and continue to remain popular even though he has had some problems in recent months. common sense tells you if you are to invite someone as an enemy, choose someone who is weaker than you  or at least someone you know you can win over. binay instead chose the most powerful and most popular political figure in the country.
• not only is aquino a popular president, he has built his presidency and in fact his election campaign that got him a landslide victory in the last election on the platform of “anti-corruption”. now that on its own is already formidable. choosing aquino as an enemy is clearly political suicide for binay because binay is now known for being corrupt and dishonest. aquino. an anti-corruption champion is exactly the person that binay the corrupt does not want to face. people will compare the two and people will decide who to believe. who is more believable – on the issue of credibility, aquino, the anti-corruption champion or  presidentiable Binay who has been charged with corruption? this is like the sinner picking a fight with the Pope.
• aquino has a large support base and allies across the political spectrum. together with aquino they will be defending aquino and can possibly start attacking binay as well. that is not even including yet the office of the president, malacanang itself which probably has the largest communication group in the government. we are already seeing this  – the various spokespersons and allies of aquino including mar roxas have started to defend and counter attack binay, picking a fight with aquino means picking a fight with more than one person. binay now has to deal with each one of them.
• if binay was busy skirting the corruption allegations against him brought up at the senate, now aquino, malacanang and his allies will be added to that existing list. this new enemy that binay invited to join in will take up a lot of his time and effort, a clear distraction on the business of having himself elected as president. it will eat up his time and effort, taking away precious time and effort from persuading voters to elect him. getting the voters to like him is already very difficult given the corruption allegations; the attacks from Aquino, his allies and supporters will just make everything much more difficult if not impossible.
• all these is good news to binay’s opponents, the other presdiencitables. they are now all sitting in the sidelines watching the whole thing unfold, watching binay burn. they don’t even have to do anything to pull down binay. binay is doing it to himself plus aquino, his allies and supporters.

all of the above makes you wonder – why is binay doing this? aquino is the president of the country, he is the anti-corruption champion and more importantly, he is NOT  running for president in 2016. pulling down aquino has no real obvious or hidden value to binay. even if binay succeeds in putting down aquino’s approval rating to zero, that will not do anything to binay’s own ratings nor will that bring down the ratings of the other presidentiables.

supporters of aquino will not move to binay to increase his ratings. aquino has nothing to do with the dramatic declines in binay’s election poll ratings. bringing aquino down will not result to stopping the declining trend of binay’s ratings nor will it reverse the trend. the cause of the decline are the graft and corruption charges that have been nationally televised during the senate hearings. to arrest the decline in his ratings is to answer those allegations and prove them wrong. binay has taken the strategy of ignoring the allegations, of not answering them of bringing up unrelated and imagined issues just so he does not directly answer the allegations. no amount of talk of other issues will resolve his problem. the label of corruption has been stuck on binay. putting in more stickers will not remove the corruption sicker. that is where the focus is of the people.

what could have been binay’s other option? it could have been a simple one – resign from the cabinet and say he is doing so so that he can focus on the preparations that are needed to be done for his presidential run and profusely thank aquino for allowing to serve the country in the capacities that were given to him. had binay done that, none of these things would have happened. no additional enemies and certainly no additional negative talk about binay. resigning amicably and profusely thanking aquino would have prevented aquino and his allies, even aquino’s anointed from attacking binay. that would have been the masterful exit.

the strategic thinking on this move of binay has failed. we do not even think there was some strategic thinking done on it. none was done as we do not see how binay would have benefited from this move. we can’t figure out even a single benefit. the only possible “benefit” was that binay has clearly declared himself as separate and not part of the aquino administration, the administration that he intends to replace. if this was the objective, it is completely unnecessary and totally worthless. we already know binay is not part of the administration, we know that from his actions and words and that of malacanang, telling us something we already know has no value.

if he wants to present his own platform of government that is different from the administration, he can do that just by coming out with a press release or a major speech on policy. breaking up with the administration and attacking it was unnecessary.

bottom line is with what binay did he gained absolutely nothing but lost a hell lot of things. this is a case of not just getting a rock and hitting your head with it, it is getting a whole truckload of rocks and hitting your head with each rock until the truck is emptied of rocks.

Mar Roxas is back, not dead & out – June 2015 Pulse Asia survey

just when things are heating up in the pre-2016 election campaign and new stars are emerging, Grace Poe and Duterte, based on the most recent Pulse Asia survey, Mar Roxas comes out as still alive and not yet down and out as others have been saying or as others are wishing.

 

Roxas in the last Pulse Asia survey shows a magnificent gain of +6% points, now at 10% from his previous 4%. he more than doubled his rating. Roxas is  now a strong 4th. he is back to his previous rating of low double digit numbers.

this rating shows he is definitely not out of the presidentiables race. what would be interesting for him is his rating in the next survey. if Roxas sustains the double digit rating and specially if he gains, then we can say he has recovered and reversed the trend to an uptrend.

so much attention has been given to Grace Poe’s rating while very little has been given to roxas. we’re not saying the attention given to Poe is undeserving because it is. Poe over taking the previous poll leader Binay is a great achievement and worth the praise and attention.

but looking at the numbers  – there are only two presidentiables who have gotten significant gains in this Pulse Asia survey – Poe is one of them, +16% points which is astronomical and the other is Roxas which is a +6% points. the increase in number for Roxas may not look much, a +6% points but it actually is considering where he was before just a 4% rating. Roxas more than doubled his rating in the latest survey. a number that is being doubled is very, very impressive even if it is a small base.

Duterte also gained, a +3% points to 15% from the previous 12% but that is not statistically different with the +/- 3 margin of error. statistically speaking, Duterte has not gained anything.

what is even more interesting is that both Poe and Roxas gained. one did not gain at the expense of the other. that is a good sign. it means each one has its own base support and they are gaining from non-admin candidates. this of course can change in the coming surveys but for now, the numbers are looking good for both of them.

the election is months away and except for Binay, the candidates have not officially declared themselves as candidates. time is on the side of Roxas. he has a lot of time to build his coalitions and support base. there are still a lot that he can do.

but what are these things that he can do? that is another topic on another time.