Shortly after watching on CNN Republican presidential candidate John McCain concede to the Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Liberal Party’s (LP) Henry Bacurnay got a text message.

"She's asking if Sarah Palin won!" Bacurnay said, after reading the text message from his friend.  The Obama supporters roared in laughter.

Unlike the Philippine political system, a vote for the US president is also a vote for his running mate, but this is not a well-known fact to many Filipinos.

John Joseph Coronel, former executive director of the Council of Asian Liberal and Democrats (CALD), shared that he once asked LP’s Chito Gascon, a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, why they didn’t just copy the US electoral system. Gascon supposedly told him it was an “oversight.”
 
Bacurnay and Coronel joined a group of about 20 like-minded policy makers and political observers at the Makati office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) early Wednesday morning to, as FNF executive director Sigfried Herzog put it, “witness history together.”

CALD, which is funded by the FNF, is allied with the National Democratic Institute. The FNF and the LP have no official positions on the US elections, but Herzog and Bacurnay personally rooted for Obama.

“Bush is intensely disliked in Germany because of the Iraq war. Germany’s political thinking is more to the left of the US,” Herzog said. He said a poll showed that 67 percent of Germans favored Obama.

White House or Black House?

At 12 noon, when CNN announced its projection that Obama would win, the mood in the room shifted from serious and analytical to triumphant, loud and humorous.  

Two hours earlier, Coronel intently watched the electoral votes come in. He either said “Good!” or “Yes!” when it favored Obama.

When Obama finally made the “change has come to America” speech, the political observers described the event as “history”, “phenomenon”, and “inspirational".

At that time, CNN’s count showed that Obama already had 338 electoral votes compared to McCain’s 155. It was even more than the group's earlier projection that Obama would get 320 electoral votes.  

“The idea that a son of an immigrant can become president reaffirms the American Dream. In America, everything is possible,” Herzog said. Like Filipinos, he said, almost all Germans have relatives in the US.
 
“It won’t be called the White House anymore. It will be the 'Black House',” quipped Argee Gallardo, also of the LP.
 

They laughed again. “Racist,” somebody said, but laughed at the joke anyway.  

“The next US President will be Filipino American!,” one added.

“What if Obama is just wearing a mask?” Coronel joked, hand on his neck like he was about to remove a mask, like in Nicholas Cage and John Travolta’s movie Face/Off.

“What history? I’m white,” Coronel said, pretending to be Obama.

Binay, first Filipino black President?

When CALD incumbent executive director and former Bukidnon Rep. Nerius Acosta returned from the US embassy’s gathering at the Mall of Asia, the attention was diverted to him.  

“Neric Obama Acosta. The first Filipino black president,” someone said.

Acosta laughed with them while showing an Obama pin to his envious colleagues.  

“I voted for Obama,” he beamed.

The US embassy installed voting booths nationwide to hold mock polls. It later announced that out of 4,045 votes cast nationwide, a total of 3,134 picked Obama while 911 voted for McCain.  

Apparently, Acosta’s dark complexion is not the only thing he shares with the president-elect of the US. He also grew up in Hawaii.

“You’ve got a rival though,” Samuel Santos of the Senate media office stood up to share a text message he got. “I received a text message saying Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay is going to be the Philippine’s first black president.”

The laughter was intoxicating.

High Expectations

Amid the celebrations, the group of policy makers and political observers agreed that Obama has a lot to prove after his victory.

Herzog had a long list of issues which he thought Obama should immediately address: attend to the global financial crisis, close the Guantanamo Bay prison, and rebuild America’s stature in the world.  

“As US president, he should work more closely with allies. Less unilateral,” Herzog added.

He said the immense popularity that Obama is enjoying—not only among Americans but among peoples worldwide—is a big advantage.

“It’s important in global leadership to have a moral standing. When Obama speaks, people are forced to listen. Bush, on the other hand, was disliked,” Herzog said.

Acosta also said he believes Obama’s victory will benefit Filipinos.

“It will mean that the US will redefine its relations with other countries. Obama understands Asia, Hawaii, and Indonesia,” he said.

Asked how he thinks Obama would address terrorism, Coronel said, “He will be more liberal. His approach will be more holistic. Unlike Bush, he will not take it as a purely military concern.”

“Barack, he really characterizes soft power,” Acosta added.