Ducky Paredes

“(1)f she should decide to run in 2010, Senator Loren Legarda should go for nothing less than the presidency.”

by Ducky Paredes

The way that our elections are set up – especially because of our multi-arty system (that actually works out to be a no-party system) – there are only a few – no more than 20 total — who can be elected president. This exclusive group is composed of those who recognized nationwide and are thus popular enough to be elected by the majority. Thus, if you are not a President (who cannot be re-elected), a vice president, a senator (who is elected by the whole nation), a popular entertainer or athlete, don’t even dream of the presidency.
Our local officials, many of whom have proven themselves as executives and would make very good presidents, are shut out of the presidential derby. That is the reality that comes from choosing a P{resident through the popular vote.
That having been said, I agree with her that, if she should decide to run in 2010, Senator Loren Legarda should go for nothing less than the presidency. After all, she’s “been there, done that,” having tried for the vice presidency as the running-mate of the late Fernando Poe, Jr. in 2004. Besides, as the Number One elected senator in 1998 and again in 2007, Loren has already proven her charisma and vote-getting prowess which has remained undiminished through the years.
The Nationalist Peoples’ Coalition (NPC), is contemplating fielding her with Senator Chiz Escudero as her vice president.
The last Pulse Asia survey shows that a Loren-Chiz team-up has a chance; this early, the pair garners 28 percent in the survey taken between Oct. 14 to 27. Reversed, with Chiz as NPC presidential bet and Loren as the vice president does not work as well, according to the same Pulse Asia survey. The Escudero-Legarda mix took only 20 percent of the nationwide survey respondents.
(Pulse Asia’s July 1-14, 2008 survey, which asked the question: “Of the following tandems for president and vice president, which tandem would you vote for if the national elections of May 2010 were being held today?” Forty percent of the survey respondents of voting age picked the Loren-Escudero presidential-vice presidential tandem over the partnership of Senator Manny Villar and Vice President Noli de Castro, which got 26 percent; and the team-up of Senators Mar Roxas and Francis Pangilinan, which took 13 percent.
(Pulse Asia’s most recent survey of presidential and vice-presidential tandems taken Oct. 14 to 27, showed 28 percent of respondents favoring the Loren-Chiz team, in a virtual tie with the tandem of Villar and De Castro. Interestingly, the October Pulse Asia survey included as a choice for respondents an Escudero-Legarda team-up, with 20 percent, ahead of the Roxas-Pangilinan team, which took 10 percent.)
Loren says that what she would bring to the presidential table are “passion and compassion.” She said that passion is useful to be able to do the job right and to have the political will to effect much-needed societal change.
On compassion, Loren posits an administration whose heart would belong to the people, whose every action would really be to push the interests of the most underprivileged.
This is the same compassion she showed when she recently worked and paid for the repatriation of nine Filipinas who had been trafficked by a Filipina-Malaysian couple and forced into prostitution in Malaysia.
Can Loren win?
In 1998, Loren topped the senatorial election and repeated the feat last year, something which only one other person, the constitutionalist and former Senate president Jovito Salonga, had accomplished. By being Numero Uno again in 2007, Loren showed that the people resoundingly approved of what she has accomplished since 1998 both in and out of the Senate.
(Of course, Salonga could never translate his success in the Senatorial sweepstakes to a presidency. He was only fifth in a six-man contest and lost even to Imelda Marcos in 1992!)
Clearly, a President Loren would be a fresh change. She has written or co-authored landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Law, and the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises Act.
And by leading hundreds of thousands of volunteers in planting trees nationwide under Luntiang Pilipinas which she organized 10 years ago, Loren has also proven herself to be a doer, where many of her Senate colleagues are merely talkers.
The Nationalist Peoples Coalition (NPC) needs only to look at survey results in deciding whom to field as its presidential and vice presidential candidates in the 2010 elections. Among NPC members, Senators Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero are veritable shoo-ins for the top elective spots of 2010, with only the question of who should run as president left to be resolved.
After all, in the Philippines, the only thing that really counts in presidential elections is popularity, Correction: That and a little bit of cheating!
An aspirant, applying to a Mr. Moneybags for funds received as answer that he should first show that he can win by topping the SWS and/or Pulse Asia surveys; then, he was told, he should come back for a serious parlay.
That is the name of the game: popularity!
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Going simply by the surveys, Loren looks like a shoo-in. In a set limited to three candidates, Loren received 37 percent of the respondents’ votes, beating by eight whopping points both Villar and De Castro, who had identical 29 percent.
Set B which had five candidates to choose from also had Loren winning with her 27 percent, followed by De Castro with 24 percent; Villar with 23; Senator Ping Lacson with 13; and Roxas with 10.
Even in an unwieldy field of eight candidates, Loren still scraped through as the winner with 21 percent. De Castro and Villar each had 20 percent, while Escudero had 17, Lacson a nine and Roxas a seven.
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hvp 12.21.08)