Former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro remained as the administration's bet in the presidential race. However, the buzz now is that, this is the advent of his exit and perhaps withdrawal from the presidential race. We can only guess why and this is my attempt to analyze the current situation. First, he's lagging in the surveys - fourth place in a field of seven candidates. Though less than 20% believe in surveys in this country, you can't ignore the fact that we're a little more than a month away from the elections. If you consistently get six percent in the surveys - that's not a good sign of his 'winnability.'
Second, the administration has been getting a lot of flak recently with the so-called "midnight appointments" that goes against an explicit provision in the constitution not to appoint during elections.
Third, there's this rumor going around that President Arroyo is secretly endorsing another candidate - Nationalista Party's candidate and former Senate President, Sen. Manny Villar. Spate of defections have been happening recently and no less than the close allies of the president are now siding with Sen. Villar.
Lastly, his resignation as Chairman of the party along with the party's president, a secretary general, and a deputy secretary general very recently.
With all the problems plaguing the party plus the deep hatred majority of the electorate has for the current government - it would only be days or weeks from now before we actually see the Lakas-Kampi-CMD party implode. This reminds me of a popular parlor game, "Boat is sinking." You can just hear the party host saying, "The boat is sinking! Group yourselves into..." And if the party sinks, you will see its members scrambling for survival in this game called politics.
