Know the Difference between Civility and Cheap Shots, Sophistication and Cheating

That in a nutshell, would define the higher plane from which Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo V. Puno has chosen to run his campaign for the second highest post in the land: to tone down bitter political debate and restore the civility that politicians from a bygone era observed when campaigning for an elective government post.

Unfortunately, this has immediately raised the hackles of those who would equate Puno with cheating at the polls, for the simple reason his candidates have always won. To prove that such allegations are true or have even an iota of truth in them calls for a winnowing of the black and white from the gray.

For master minding Fidel V. Ramos´ successful march to Malacañang in 1992, accusations of cheating in the provinces have remained just that to this date. In Pampanga where President Arroyo´s half sister Cielo Macapagal Salgado filed an electoral protest against the late Bren Guiao, not one instance of electoral fraud was found to be true and Guiao, who backed Fidel Ramos for president, was proven to have truly won the gubernatorial contest.

Bottom line was, Puno managed a superlative campaign for FVR, using state-of-the-art poll technologies and a superior savvy of how and where votes were to be won, and ensuring these were properly counted. Political observers cannot help but marvel at how the maestro orchestrated the campaign. Sophisticated? Yes, but honest and fair notwithstanding.

Just because the losers were on the other side of the political fence, and defeated by a superior political strategist, is not reason enough for them to label Puno´s campaign as tainted with electoral fraud.

Basically using the same strategy for Estrada´s campaign which resulted to his landslide victory, Puno knew exactly by how much his candidate would win over Jose de Venecia, coming up with a figure which approximated to a close degree Estrada´s margin of victory.

How does he do it? There´s probably not one living person in the Philippines today who can beat Ronnie Puno as a political strategist. All he does it employ modern poll management work based on different objective conditions and fill up the need for each. No magic or hocus-pocus here; only fair and honest hard work.

Not the least, despite a full-blown campaign to tag him in the "Hello, Garci" case, this has fizzled out just the same like the earlier accusations against him due to the complete lack of any links between what he was doing as head of DILG and the work of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

And now that the time has come for him to use those same strategies in his behalf, his foes have again raised the specter of alleged plans to employ the Philippine National Police (PNP) to attain this goal.

After he is officially proclaimed as the vice presidential bet of Lakas-Kampi-CMD, Puno would have already severed ties with the DILG and PNP.

The PNP, by tradition and practice, follows a chain of command. Never in its history has a former interior secretary used it for whatever purpose it might serve him.

Truth be told, the spate of attacks against Puno merely serves to demonstrate there is mortal fear among his foes of facing a master political strategist, probably the best the country has today.