By Jose Bayani Baylon
IN late 2012, a friend of mine who is part of the Movie TV Radio Classification Board sent me an intriguing message: Was I willing to help a neophyte run for the Senate?
I wondered what she meant by “help”. I am a very politically inclined individual, but my experience in electoral campaigns is limited.
I once campaigned for former Assemblyman Alejandro A. Fider of Caloocan, father of my high school “gangmate” and now RTC Judge Ma. Amifaith Fider-Reyes. A decent man, Assemblyman Fider lost in the post-Marcos polls (as did many other KBL stalwarts) and thereafter retired from politics.
I also campaigned for former Assemblyman Renato L. Cayetano when he was a member of the Batasan, and who I joined in helping revive the Nacionalista Party (Enrile Wing) in 1986. The elder Cayetano lost in his campaign in 1987 for a seat in the new House of Representatives, and that was my second defeat.
I was happy to have been part of his Senate campaign a few years later because that was a victory. It was also the time when his son Alan won his first term as member of the House of Representatives for Pateros-Taguig.
I was also involved in Richard J. Gordon’s effort to win back City Hall after he was ousted and replaced by an OIC. That was successful, but what do you expect when it is RJG running in Olongapo? I was also happy to have been part of Kate Gordon’s successful run for the House representing one district in Zambales, but again I ask, what do you expect when it is Kate running?
Almost always sure winners there.
I have almost never really been involved in the nitty gritty of campaigning, except in the area of brainstorming and helping put together messages, position papers and the like. Part of the reason was that, having been employed by a multinational for a considerable period of time, and having so many friends run for public office at the same time, sometimes against each other, I have preferred to remain on the sidelines as a keen observer with his own biases.
And so when the question was posed, I replied that I was more than happy to share my thoughts but I wasn’t so sure how much time I could devote.
When it was revealed to me that the neophyte was Grace Poe, I was even more intrigued and immediately shot off a word document dated October 10, 2012 containing my thoughts about the prospect of a Grace Poe candidacy for the Senate.
Fast forward to 2014, and now I read news reports that Senator Grace Poe is being pushed to consider a run for nothing less than the presidency in 2016. The logic behind the reasoning is understandable: she topped the Senatorial polls in 2013, she carries FPJ’s mantle on her shoulders; if there is a public backlash against trapo politics and the corruption that characterizes politics-as-we-know-it she could represent the antithesis to all that; she remains relatively untainted by scandal; she will have Susan Roces and Brian Poe at her side; she could very well mouth Cory’s “I admit I am inexperienced – in corruption, in lying, in stealing, in cheating” line that our first female president used so well on the stump in 1986.
A few weeks back, I took a party of six to visit Manicani island and Guiuan town as part of my effort to network with individuals who wish to do more good for our country. In the party was Mercedes “Dedes” Zobel, daughter of my ex-boss Enrique; and in the party too, and my helicopter seatmate, was Brian Poe Llamanzares, son of Senator Grace.
During the lunch we had at Tanghay Lodge in Guiaun town, Brian peeled away from our group to sit with some PNP men who had been sent by Mayor Sheen Gonzales to escort us around. It was intriguing (the word again!) that just as he sat with them, they posed a question, which he found hard to answer: Is your mother running for President? It was a question that Brian ably danced around, but a question that he is being asked more and more often these days. Indeed, many people want to know if Grace Poe is running, and that is because I sense that many people are still undecided over who to choose for 2016.
Will Grace Poe in 2016 be the saving grace of the country? Or will refusing to push her into such a campaign be, in effect, saving Grace?
Undeniably, however, the frontrunner remains Vice President Jejomar Binay. I happened to be sitting inside the departure area of the Puerto Princesa airport when a regular PAL flight landed at about 6:40 a.m. on a
Sunday, but this was no ordinary flight because the province’s political bigwigs were on the tarmac waiting for the passengers to alight. When I finally saw the Vice President emerge from the group that had descended the covered staircase, I immediately sensed that the other departing passengers who had gathered around me had 2016 in mind. And when a foreigner asked who the VIP was who was being greeted with a necklace of shells and some native dances, his Filipino companion replied “the future President”.
Shouldn’t he have said “the next president”?
Whether you think Jejomar Binay is “just” a future president, or whether you think he is the next president, you have to give it to him that he took a regularly scheduled commercial flight to Palawan rather than using a businessman-friend’s private aircraft. I remember flying home from Kadayawan in Davao in 2011 and chancing upon him on the same PAL flight. We exchanged greetings and agreed to chat during the flight but it didn’t happen: you see as an executive of a multinational I was seated in business class, while the Vice President of the Philippines sat in the economy section.
No question about it: more than anything else, that “common touch” is the Vice President’s saving grace.
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