2022: Year of women?

It’s early days still, but already, two political names are being bandied about as presidential candidates in 2022 and both political figures are women: Sara Duterte, current presidential daughter and head of a regional political party, and Leni Robredo, current Vice President.

“From virtually nothing, she put up a regional party that can prove to be a grassroots party that could easily make senators and even a presidential bet win their elective seats.

Another possible 2022 presidential candidate is yet another woman — Grace Poe-Llamanzares, even as she continues to claim that she is not interested in running again for the presidency which race she entered in 2016 but lost to President Rodrigo Duterte.

Poe may mean what she says today about not running in the 2022 presidential race. The old case of her having been a naturalized American citizen and her failure, being an adopted child, to prove her being a Filipino citizen by blood has hardly been proved in the country’s High Court, which allowed her to run despite her indefinite citizenship status as her then lawyer, then Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, now a yellow senatorial candidate, claimed that despite the jus sanguinis principle that the country follows, which determines citizenship by blood, any adopted child found in the country is a Filipino citizen, following the jus soli principle which America follows in granting natural born citizenship to its citizens. That’s Hilbay for you — twisting what is unconstitutional and getting away with it. And to think he was then the Solgen who did not give a hoot about the Constitution!

The Supreme Court (SC) ruling on Poe’s run for the presidency in 2016 is not doctrine and therefore can be questioned again and, this time, there won’t be a yellow Solicitor General and a yellow Chief Justice to rule on such issues, if it ever crops up again.

In any case, this issue would hardly be reopened if Poe does not run for the top political post in 2022. But if she does, and the SC again says Poe can run, she may just have a rerun of 2016, what with Sara Duterte — if she runs for the top post, too — also running for the same top post.

But who knows? There may just be yet another presidential contender — a male figure this time — in former Vice President Jojo Binay. He is, at this time, running for a congressional seat which may mean he is not ready to retire from politics.

And there is yet another male political figure who is likely to enter the 2022 presidential race — Bongbong Marcos, who is bent on contesting the victory of Leni Robredo who is most unlikely to seek the top political post, knowing that she would lose and lose badly.

Leni also knows she doesn’t have it in her to get the votes — enough for her to become President. The talk then is that she only won because of the Smartmatic fraud committed in 2016. It will be recalled that the Smartmatic officer and a Comelec personnel were caught red-handed changing the codes which was followed by a sudden rain of over a million votes overnight for Leni while Marcos suddenly lost over a million votes — just like that!

The way it looks, the yellows are done for politically and it will take decades, if at all, for the yellows’ political resurrection. The yellows — with both Aquinos at the helm — destroyed the nation with their hypocritical yellow brand and the yellows’ corrupt activities.

If Marcos Jr. is extra lucky, he may yet become the vice president of the Philippines if he wins his protest against Leni. However, this will all depend on how long a delay the Aquino appointed SC associate justice in charge of the protest wants to delay the case.

If Leni is super lucky, she may yet become the next President of the Philippines, and cause the almost immediate resurrection of the yellows. However, this can only happen if President Duterte is permanently incapacitated, is impeached, resigns or dies.

But despite all the yellow talk about Duterte being terminally ill or had a kidney transplant, cancer or any other incurable illness, he will still be President until 2022. However, Duterte may just resign, should Bongbong win his protest before 2022, which would give him the edge — that is, if he doesn’t run against Sara Duterte, who has shown how powerful and influential she is with politicians in and out of power.

It was she who had engineered the fall of then Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez with whom she was at odds with and the rise of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Imagine Sara, a President’s daughter, achieving that congressional feat.

And even her father, the President, has admitted that he really can’t control his daughter.

Sara again proves her political influence in party and electoral politics.

From virtually nothing, she put up a regional party that can prove to be a grassroots party that could easily make senators and even a presidential bet win their elective seats. And better than her father, Sara goes all out for her senatorial bets and rounds them up in provincial sorties, getting more and more appearances and votes for her Senate bets.

Presidential elections 2022 may yet be the most interesting race by far.