DESPERATE men make desperate rantings.

        Recently, Malacañang-based political strategists and publicists railed at survey results, particularly those coming from the Social Weather Station (SWS) and threatened the latter of being phased out from business after May 14 when governors and mayors of the administration and Team Unity candidates would have dominated the local elections contrary to the pollster’s findings that the Genuine Opposition would easily pummel the administration candidates. Earlier, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s media managers had been forecasting a highly improbable 12-0 sweep in favor of the well-oiled Unity senatorial ticket.

        TU spokesman Eastern Samar Gov. Ben Evardone has dismissed as “absurd” the SWS survey results which showed, among others, that those who choose administration candidates in the local level would fill their ballots with senatorial candidates mostly from the Genuine Opposition and not the Singson-Angara led administration ticket.

        He went on to explain that GMA’s administration controls 70 percent of incumbent congressmen, 99 percent of governors and 70 percent mayors to boost his claim that nowhere the opposition candidates could nail some reasonable degree of poll triumph when May 14 comes.

        While his statistics may be correct, Evardone, himself a local chief executive, may have ignored the fact that congressmen, mayors, and governors worry the least about the fate of their partymates especially those coming from the national level such as senatorial candidates. There are no martyrs in political battles; only victors and losers at whatever cost. Moreover, local candidates support only those who are strong and have chances of winning based, among others, on survey results.

        Indeed, local chief executives are known to be the best examples of fair-weather friends and would avow their loyalty only to those who are in power who could, first and foremost, boost their chances at the polls. And while they profess their loyalty to the party, that is all for a show, just to make sure that he as a local mayoral or gubernatorial candidate is part of a well-oiled political machinery which traditionally belongs to the administration.

        Team Unity, therefore, is warned not to be naïve enough to bank on the administration’s control of local government network in steamrolling past the opposition because many of these KAMPI- or Lakas-endorsed candidates have their own list of favored senatoriables, the majority of which ironically comes from the opposition whom they feel are also the favored choice of their own people whose local votes and sentiments they are wooing. Camarines Sur, for instance, may have only a handful of official opposition mayoral candidates, although signs are showing that most of the opposition senatoriables, as in other provinces, will lord it over when ballot counting comes minus the cheating.

        The latest SWS survey, as its past surveys proved, may be true after all. So, who’s going to be out of business after May 14? Pichay? Singson? Oreta? Montano? Coseteng? Let’s start counting.