Mar Shifts Gears

"Fruits of a good tree," that's how Jovito Salonga, the best president this country never had, described Mar Roxas and Noynoy Aquino.

Mar Roxas is being lauded for the supreme sacrifice of withdrawing from the presidential race and giving way to Noynoy, the reluctant Noynoy, to become the Liberal party's standard-bearer. An act of statemanship, everybody seems to be in accord.

I truly believe there's no spin here, no gimmickry at all. It is but pragmatic to ride on the coattails of the Cory magic while it lasts. But to overstate Mar Roxas' supposed sacrifice is a bit off. I mean, sure it must be painful to give up something you have worked and spent millions for but one can also look at it in a different angle.

His numbers were not going up despite the barrage of infomercials. "Ramdam ko kayo," he assures but the case is "Di niya tayo nararamdaman." Not in very encouraging figures so we can also say, Mar is in fact cutting his losses this early. Early on, talks of an Escudero team-up was rife, Escudero being quite popular in some surveys but that seemed to fizzle out. Noynoy is a more viable tandem, let's see how this plays out after Noynoy's spiritual retreat.