“I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.”
—Henny Youngman

JINKEE Pacquiao is, perhaps, the only wife who has been actively accompanying her husband in the presidential campaign all over the country.

The wives of Bongbong Marcos Jr., Isko Moreno, Panfilo Lacson, Leody De Guzman, Norberto Gonzales, Ernesto Abella, Jose Montemayor, and Faisal Mangondato haven’t been seen physically and actively standing side by side their husbands in caravans and in other public appearances related to the political campaigns in the May 9 election.

Jinkee, 43, has become Senator Pacquiao’s exquisite harpoon and valuable package in the most important mission of his life.

In the many times that I covered Pacquiao’s fights when he was active in boxing in Las Vegas and elsewhere in the past 14 years, I had the privilege on several occasions to sit down and eat breakfast and lunch with the Pacquiao couple in their apartment in La Brea, Los Angeles and in their suites in Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

I found Jinkee to be shy-type and someone who didn’t interact and say a word both in the dining table and the living room.

She also didn’t look in the eyes of anyone who visited her husband, but would steal a glance at individuals she may have hated or liked secretly.

It’s a big surprise she is now singing and interacting with people in her husband’s campaign rallies.

If she becomes a First Lady, let’s hope she won’t be another Imelda Marcos.

WITH less than 30 days to go before the May 9 Philippine election, the cat is out of the bag.

Several surprised realignments, “jumping of ships”, “changing and dropping”, and “multiple horse-riding” tactics among national candidates have been unearthed wittingly and unwittingly these past days.

In local politics, it’s hard to switch alliances or dump a party mate vice versa in the eleventh hour, but politics in the Philippines is so unique and bizarre that treachery and double-dealings aren’t implausible.

Some nervous but segurista senatorial candidates, meanwhile, have been caught padding their canoes not only in two rivers but in multiple oceans.

Senatorial candidates can never serve two masters at the same time. They can’t ride on two caterpillars.

In the name of delicadeza and transparency, they must choose only one presidential and vice presidential candidate and pick which party or camp to be with come hell or high water.

But this is not happening in the May 9 election. There are senatorial candidates who must be relatives of Judas Iscariot.

They are running in two to three parties (my golly) and attending the rallies of these parties in different schedules and time.

They don’t reveal their candidates for president and vice president as freeloaders until their butts accidentally protrude while hiding in the curtains.

In the presidential race, it’s becoming a battle of acronyms.

Weeks going to the homestretch, assorted combinations and pairings have surfaced: RoSa or Robredo-Sara and KaLeSa or Kay Leni-Sara for those pushing for Leni Robredo for president and Sara Duterte for vice president.

According to the grapevine, President Rodrigo Duterte, who has announced he wasn’t supporting any presidential candidate, “knew about the KaLeSa and RoSa” because the prime movers were mostly Mr. Duterte’s allies in Mindanao.

Other private groups and political mercenaries in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao that support different candidates for president and vice president reportedly have displayed their own creativity by floating different acronyms to endorse their chosen candidates from different parties.

There are movements that also root for Isko Moreno (president) and Sara Duterte (vice president); Manny Pacquiao (president) and Tito Sotto (vice president); Bongbong Marcos (president) and Sotto (vice president); Ping Lacson (president) and Duterte (vice president); Lacson (president) and Kiko Pangilinan (vice president); Pacquiao (president) and Pangilinan (vice president); and Moreno (president) and Pangilinan (vice president).

Because of the smorgasbord of pairings and other possible combinations as the judgement day approaches, the surveys consistently dominated by Marcos Jr. these past months have almost become irrelevant, to say the least.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)