Adios patria adorada
Raul Roco's medical consultation in the US has all the simulacrum of a graceful concession. His presidential candidacy, despite the brave front he and the rest of his tattered Alyansa are putting on, is all but kaput. His leaving the country at this most inopportune time will surely be interpreted by a considerable number of his supporters as a tacit signal to abandon ship. Today reports that "Mahar Mangahas of the Social Weather Stations Inc. had said that if Roco dropped out of the race, the President would likely get 5.6 percent of his votes, while actor Poe Jr. would get 4.3 percent."

Rumors are rife that there must have been an understanding between the Arroyo camp and Roco. Some are also concerned that there may be a metastasis of Roco's prostate cancer. Whichever may be the real case, there is no doubt, as this Inquirer editorial suggests, that the most disheartened by the news are his youth volunteers, who have toiled hard campaigning for whatever remains of their juvenile idealism.

How can one console those volunteers? I guess they must take this episode of their lives as an opportunity to disabuse themselves of the unhealthy conception that one can win an election by sheer intellectual prowess and idealism. Like in any endeavor, there is simply no known substitute to good old hard cash. People respect cash, whatever its progeny. The next time that these volunteers engage in any election--their own or somebody else's-- they must make sure that they would never be outspent by their rivals. This is the cardinal rule of getting elected; candidates ignore it at their own peril.