A different kind of strut

My Tuesdays are unusually full, with classes starting at 09.40 and ending at 16.00. I was actually lucky to manage to have a Santugon RTR – one for FAST 2005 – done in M208, which is very unlikely considering I was having a major class at that time. I guess it helps that three out of the four batch candidates are CAM students. Mae Ong was pretty quick to ask permission in that endearing manner of hers.

Aside from the fact that she got too excited, probably, by the prospect of campaigning to an exclusive CAM class – probably a guaranteed bloc vote, but who knows? – to the point that she somewhat botched her positions at the end of the speech, today was slow. The executive boards aren’t around yet, or to be more exact, they were around when I wasn’t. But this observation isn’t lost among the supporters themselves. As Monica Alcoseba, campaign officer for Santugon, explained, it’s as if the elections this year are “dead,” even in Andrew, where things are supposedly hotter, so to speak.

I actually blame this slowness for today’s article about Santugon – primarily because I’ve seen more of them today, but also because in the three years I have been covering the elections, they have been an underdog of sorts.

An extraordinary sense of confidence

However, this year marks a certain upbeatness in Santugon’s campaign. Their speeches try to position themselves as the winners, which is unusually assertive for the party in my opinion, but could be a way of motivating themselves, too.

And true enough, they have a reason to be excited. This is a party that almost floated the possibility of not fielding candidates in this year’s election. I had the perception that people were willing to graduate, which somewhat led to a scramble for potential candidates within the party, but here we are, looking at the newly-posted tarpaulins of the all-female executive board, a slate that they describe as powerful.

Keane Palatino, the party’s presidential candidate last year, is particularly excited. It is the first time, he says, that Santugon has fielded an incoming terminal student in Agnes de Castro. During the last three elections, they have fielded incoming senior students, including 2006’s Mico Geronimo and, of course, Keane. An experience advantage, he says.

Redg de Vera, the party’s bet for FAST 2005 batch representative, believes the same, too. “All of them have [experience] in the Student Council,” he said in a pre-campaign conversation we had. “All have been elected, so they’re not just some pretty face we picked up just so we can have a slate.”

I have yet to see their executive board do an RTR, but knowing some of them, I do get their point. You could even see that experience as a euphemism for the fact that most of the current executive board candidates have lost their bids for Student Council positions last year. But it doesn’t seem to matter for them – Nadia Ong, for instance, is running for the same position she ran for last year.

As for Sarah Santos, who ran last year as college assembly president for CLA: “she’s tired na,” Mon told me during the PTPCs this afternoon, “but you know her naman. She loves running!”

Emphasis on the frosh

I did meet the three – Agnes, Nadia and Sarah – this morning, on one of their breaks. For the past two days they have been campaigning to the freshmen, but Sarah promised that they would pass by the other batches – especially our batch – tomorrow. I have still to catch an executive board pitch, to be honest.

The surprise came when I went up the third floor after my first class at M208. The first person to greet me was, well, Sarah. “We’re here,” she said. They were already doing the rounds of the third floor! They tried to get in our classroom, but we were in a middle of a group report which can’t be interrupted, because if it was, we would have been delayed further. It was just funny seeing them pass by the room twice and peek in twice, only to later see a swarm of feet near the door. And even they were confused – at one point they thought they were going to Gokongwei, but found themselves back at Miguel faster than I could say, “next campaign please!”

If this year proves to be a victory for Santugon, it would be some sort of surprise for me – and a real success for them. For a party whose actual position in the world still elicits confused reactions, even to a seasoned election watcher like me, getting their message across has been a fairly significant struggle for them. If, this year, the experience that’s been strongly tauted will translate to a victory, it’s something really worth watching out for.

Santugon followers have been surprised at the latest developments, and can only help but watch. But for those who are here, it’s proving to be a privilege. Mon, for one, thought she wouldn’t be in this year’s campaign due to academic priorities, but “you can’t remove the Santugon in you,” she says.

As for Leslie Chew, who admits to be inactive in the weeks leading to the campaign, it’s a nice feeling to be back on the trail. “I was wearing a white shirt kanina,” she said yesterday, “but I felt guilty.” She was wearing her Santugon shirt that day.

Tomorrow, she would be away to shoot for her thesis, but she said she would still be texting her “kids” from the CLA. I guess it’s something you indeed develop in a group like this – and with every other group generally.

I haven’t seen much of Tapat, probably because they were campaigning elsewhere, but I caught Hugh Morris today, again promising tomorrow’s release of their GPOAs. But does Tapat need any more visibility? If their victories are some sort of barometer, you’d want to give it a second thought.

Shale Campaigns 2008 has a thread at PinoyExchange. Click here to post your opinions and speculations on the coming elections. Also, click here to view all multimedia content related to this year’s campaigns at Fifth Year Holler.