Post facto Senate turnout

In official ranking order, the 12 new senators are: Bong Go, Bam Aquino, Bato de la Rosa, Erwin Tulfo, Kiko Pangilinan, Dante Marcoleta, Ping Lacson, Tito Sotto, Pia Cayetano, Camille Villar, Lito Lapid and Imee Marcos. Go, Dela Rosa and Marcoleta are associated with the Duterte camp; while Lacson, Cayetano, Lapid, Villar and Marcos are with the ruling camp, except Villar and Marcos jumped ship.

Then there are Tulfo as a newbie and Aquino and Pangilinan as returnees, where the latter two were shocked at the top places they got and the former simply expected to win. Interestingly, Marcoleta may have expected to win although that was not what the pollsters said.

Many conclusions may be drawn to explain why and how they won election.

Well, the electorate was made up of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996 or those aged 29-44) and Gen Z (born in 1997-2012, aged 18-28) who combined made up 60.5 percent of the total registered voters. There were also Gen X (aged 45-59) that comprised 23 percent of the electorate and the Baby Boomers (aged 60 and above) that represented 19 percent.

“Color coded,” Go, Dela Rosa and Marcoleta are with the green Duterte camp; Lacson, Sotto, Pia Cayetano, Lapid, and Villar and Marcos were with the red BBM camp, until the latter two changed colors to beef up the green. Add to the color configuration Aquino and Pangilinan who represented the yellow-cum-pink, while Erwin Tulfo may be counted as red as well.

Hence, the political turnout was BBM with five solons; Sara matched this with five; while the true opposition won two.

The Senate will have a total complement of 23 with the 11 incumbents until 2028: Chiz Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada, Alan Cayetano, JV Ejercito, Win Gatchalian, Loren Legarda, “Robinhood” Padilla, Raffy Tulfo, Joel Villanueva, Mark Villar and Migz Zubiri. Consequently, the Senate will have two Cayetanos, two Tulfos, two Villars and the Estrada-Ejercito half-brothers.

Of the 11 incumbents, Escudero, Gatchalian, Legarda, Raffy Tulfo, Zubiri and Mark Villar could be pro-Marcos, whereas Estrada, Alan Cayetano, Ejercito, Padilla and Villanueva could be pro-Duterte, thereby creating a fault line that is 6-5 in favor of Marcos. However, this could be Vice President Sara Duterte’s “sweet spot” to swing the trial to her favor.

The 5-5-2 power distribution from the new set of senators alongside the 6-5 from the incumbent senators simply means the absence of a clear ruling majority and this can frustrate the conviction of Sara. In fact, the controlling majority is now the Duterte camp.

The overall political configuration should incentivize FM Jr. to bring both the House and the Senate on an even keel through the free, open and democratic selection of new leaders beyond the dynamics of their respective enclaves.

It’s time to unsubscribe to David and Legara’s theory finding “celebrities, dynasts, incumbents” as senatorial preference sine qua non. That said, all polling circuits must be regulated lest they be labeled, nay classified pejoratively, as “push-pulling circuits.”

Pollsters like Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia that conduct redundant pre-election surveys must begin to become irrelevant and the 20th Congress must legislate against its deregulation. Lesser known polling circuits with conflicting or counterfactual findings to dominant ones are axiomatic of the possibility of unmasking these as “pseudo survey factories” out to rake in money from politicians willing to commission them.

The results of both overseas and local absentee voting graphically demonstrate strong marks of isolation and abandonment tantamount to the absence of an affirmative faith in the government and Marcosian statecraft.