OR more precisely, the Filipino people’s will in choosing their presidents has its reasons and its logic, which the Finks just don’t understand or refuse to understand. Comprehending it and the people’s decision last May 9 is unsurprising.

The key point to understand is that contrary to the flawed “history” and narratives crafted under the three Yellow regimes and its powerful oligarch — and US-owned media apparatus — EDSA I was never the will of the majority of Filipinos.

At most, only 20 percent supported it — mostly in Metro Manila and Cebu and supported by the US and the elites. The crushing of the RAM-led coups right after EDSA in 1986, however, intimidated the nation to accept the three Yellow regimes (Cory’s, Ramos’ and Aquino 3rd) and their narratives.

The people, however, managed to get their voices heard in the first elections after EDSA 1. In 1992, Imelda Marcos and Marcos’ most powerful ally, Eduardo Cojuangco, together got 28 percent of the votes. If the two had only united, they would have beaten Fidel Ramos, who got only 24 percent, which would have meant the restoration of Marcos’ rule democratically. But then, one would wonder why Ramos even got that many votes if he was head of the Philippine Constabulary, which would have been responsible for the alleged widespread human rights abuses during martial law.

The runner-up was not a candidate identified with EDSA 1 nor endorsed by the Yellow forces: Miriam Defensor Santiago, who got 20 percent.

The 1998 presidential election was a total rejection of the Yellows, with Joseph Estrada — who had been San Juan mayor for most of the martial law era and a senator who ran with the Marcos coalition in 1987 — winning by a landslide (40 percent) over the Cory candidate Jose de Venecia (15 percent).

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is sui generis. She assumed power in 2001 as a result of a coup cum mobs led by the Yellow forces but won as president in the 2004, with little support from the Yellows, who would just a year later attempt to oust her through another fake People Power movement. The runner-up who lost only by 3 percentage points to Arroyo’s 40 percent was action star Fernando Poe Jr. While voted mostly because of his celebrity status, Poe did represent the people’s will.

Fluke

The Yellows managed to install their president in the 2010 elections with Cory’s son, Benigno Aquino 3rd, getting 42 percent of votes. The anti-Yellow forces, however, would have won with 52 percent if their three candidates had united — Estrada with 26 percent; Manuel Villar, 15 percent; and Gilbert Teodoro, 11 percent.

Aquino 3rd’s votes were boosted because of his mother’s death nine months before, with the Yellow media like the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ABS-CBN exploiting this to the hilt, that he would be as pure-hearted as his mother. But nothing like that kind of development, transformed into political capital, can ever occur for any Yellow candidate.

That the 2010 election was a fluke because of Cory’s death, and did not represent a resurgence of Yellow power, became obvious in 2016. Despite the resources of the Aquino 3rd regime and their vast media apparatus, the 2016 election was a rejection of Yellow governance, with Rodrigo Duterte winning by 39 percent, and Manuel Roxas getting only 23 percent. Votes for Duterte, who loudly positioned himself as an anti-Yellow force, would have been bigger if another anti-Yellow candidate Grace Poe (who got 22 percent) had allied with him. Duterte broke the back of the Yellow forces.

Unsurprising

This review of these past five elections makes the results of the elections unsurprising. The percentage votes for four Yellow candidates from Ramos to Roxas averaged 26 percent. While Robredo got 28 percent, 2 percentage points higher than the average, that improvement is negated by Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. landslide victory with 59 percent of votes.

This support for the Yellows basically is about one-fourth of the country which, I estimated at the outset, is the percentage of Filipinos who believed and still believe in EDSA 1. The majority of Filipinos, except for the 2010 fluke, has been consistent in voting against Yellow candidates, although it had been split in several elections because more than one anti-Yellow candidate ran. Still though, the people have managed to prevent votes for a Yellow from increasing beyond 30 percent, excepting the 2010 fluke.

The Yellow base of one-fourth of the country is still there. Although Marcos has totally routed their candidate and has an overwhelming mandate from the people, he still has to win a sizeable chunk of this Yellow base, so as to prevent them, a very politically active and noisy group, from destabilizing his regime, and to wipe out this blight on the country during his term.

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