THE title of the popular Chinhua Achebe novel may serve to describe the opposition after the stunning resignation of key Liberal Party leaders.

The devastating loss of Otso Diretso is not a shock to many who actively rooted for them.

The resignation of key Liberal Party officials yesterday, though, comes as a surprise.

Being unexpected, the decision leaves the opposition without effective heads, and therefore, lacking the critical vision leading up to the next important political exercises in 2022.

The presence of this leadership matters as any rebuilding program ought to begin right after the electoral loss as they pick up the pieces.

As I have written previously, they made many strategic mistakes that should have been avoided, committed tactical errors in the midst of the campaign period that helped their opponents keep or even widen their lead.

The current fortunes of the liberal party make it a shadow of its once formidable capabilities. They were once in power and able to dictate the game, causing mass defections from other parties into its fold after the 2010 elections, increasing its hold going into the 2013 midterm polls to keep their adversaries at bay.

Come the 2016 elections they were the party to beat, with 69 out of 81 governors and two thirds of the House of Representatives, they would have marched off to bring Mar Roxas into the presidency.

But other things happened.

A lesser known Mayor from a southern Philippines city with no known political base outside his own region created a groundswell of support for him within the 90 day campaign period and took the presidency against the more moneyed, better equipped and popular opponents from Manila, including a sitting vice president.

Clearly, history has marched on, and the LP has fallen on hubris.

2019 was the critical election where  they should have elected at least one senator to show that they remain a formidable contender for 2022.

But with a diminished number in the senate and house, this sets the liberal party back further to the days after the 1992 loss of Senate President Jovito Salonga for the presidency.

For one, the product they tried to resuscitate, the EDSA legacy is no longer the attractive item it once was.

You will recall that they tried to kick off their campaign using this event, with former President Noynoy Aquino rallying what looked like a tired, diminished bunch of campaigners mainly coming from party list allies.

They swiftly changed gears, even using new hand signs and using different colors to shed off the yellow label associated with EDSA, to no avail.

Second, we cannot be deluded into thinking the past administrations allied with them have delivered the reforms that most people, especially the class D voters who constitute the majority, demand. They have not.

Broken down trains, high crime volumes, illegal drugs prevalence, an inefficient and unfair tax system, unavailable health care and education- things which majority hoped would improve from 2010, did not.

Thus, harking for the image of past administrations, and fielding candidates associated with this past nostalgia did not sell.

Worse, they may have been perceived by voters as an unprincipled opposition bent on blocking current reforms that benefit majority of voters.