Kingmaker

Albay Governor Joey Salceda's drumbeaters and sycophants are getting ahead of themselves with their newest media spin that the economist-cum-governor is largely responsible for Sen. Noynoy Aquino's huge number of votes in the said province and even for the region. Such claim ignores the fact that prior to Gov. Salceda's defection to Aquino's camp and the Liberal Party (LP), the local LP machinery had already done much of the legwork and the campaigning for Noynoy. Or as one lead volunteer for Sen. Aquino working in Albay has put it, "(Salceda's) support was most welcome, but it wasn't needed anymore to win Bikol for Sen. Aquino. Even before he joined us, we knew that Albay and Bikol will deliver big for Noynoy."

Alas, Salceda always knew the right time to buy stocks and get the highest dividends for them, being a high stakes player at the international stock exchange market. He also knew when to dump a stock when its profitability had reached its end. Thus, when he jumped from Mrs. Gloria Arroyo's ship and hitched himself to the Aquino bandwagon, it was timed magnificently as Gov. Salceda now moves to present himself as "kingmaker" in this part of Luzon. Or at least, this is what his media handlers aimed to achieve.

According to Salceda, it's all numbers. "I have come to the preliminary conclusion," he explained of his defection, "that a new mandate under an Aquino presidency would have the highest statistical probability of triggering a significant increase in the investment rate from the current 15% while the domestic savings available to fund it stands at 30%." That projected increase in the investment rate, he implied, was what counted the most in his decision to support Noynoy, even after the pomp and circumstance surrounding his candidacy-filing in which the supposed Administration-backed presidential hopeful, Gilbert "Gibo" Teodoro, accompanied him.

Whatever the real reason behind Salceda's turncoatism, it was obvious that Bikol would have voted largely for Noynoy though not necessarily for other Liberal Party candidates. Quite likely, Salceda knew this: for he did say that he will honor (and in fact, he did) his prior commitments to local candidates, to ones who did not belong to LP.

This decision of Gov. Salceda, by the way, begged the question why he has been named LP Regional Chair when, from the outset, he had made it clear he was not supporting all of LP's local candidates.

At any rate, with the outcome of the elections almost unmistakable, Governor Salceda's people are keen on having the governor proclaimed as Bikol's kingmaker. Perhaps they realize that with this media spin, it might earn the Albay Governor some points and clout with the new administration whose campaign promise was-if we recall it correctly-to pursue corruption charges against Salceda's former boss.