Damage Control

The administration is getting better at this.

When the issue on the wiretapped conversation came up, somehow I knew, that the administration could survive it. And after the admission of the President yesterday, looks like it will.

This is again, not to say, that I am pro-administration. It's just that, when you're watching from the sidelines (you can say, on the front row seats because of my job), you get to see strategies from both sides.

I thought the admission diffused the opposition. Prior to this, there have been street protests calling for her ouster. Opposition quarters say that her continued silence has eroded her credibility to rule. And her silence is an admission of guilt.

For weeks, that has been the battlecry of the opposition. And it was easy to counter.

With the admission, the opposition has lost steam, steam which it has been taking a little while to gather.

And again, the administration was successful in reverting to the original narrative they tried to sell initially.

When Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye came out with two copies of the CD containing the conversation, he said that he had the "smoking gun" of their misdeed. Proof of their illegal activity (wiretapping).

The reactions were not the type the administration predicted. They thought, people would raise hell over the President being wiretapped (who's safe now?).

The opposition, at least, was able to point out the real issue: electoral fraud. For a while, the debates were about rigging (why would a President call on a COMELEC Commissioner?; why the instructions to cheat?).

And they should have capitalized on it. And seized the opportunity when there still was.

But the administration acted faster and has, as it appears, caught the opposition flat-footed.

The problem of the opposition is, and has always been, its unity. And it looks like, the administration knows this all too well.