Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:33:00 11/02/2009
Filed Under: Inquirer Politics, Eleksyon 2010, Benigno Aquino III, Manny Villar
MANILA, Philippines—“Why can’t he get a running mate?”Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III raised the question after Sen. Manuel Villar questioned his competence to lead the nation as the Liberal Party standard-bearer in the May elections.
“It’s true that he won both the Senate presidency and the speakership, but why did he keep losing them? Again, why can’t he get a running mate?” Aquino asked in a text message to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Saturday night.
Villar, who was ousted as Senate president a year ago, has long announced he is seeking the presidency under the Nacionalista Party, but has yet to get a running mate.
“Has he shown any portion of his platform despite the fact that he has been running for quite some time?” Aquino asked.
He repeated this position in an interview Sunday at Manila Memorial Park, where around 100 people mobbed him as he visited the tombs of his parents, assassinated opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. and former President Corazon Aquino.
“He’s with the opposition ticket, but as someone pointed out, when was the last time he criticized the present administration,” Aquino said.
Aquino’s chief campaigner, former Education Secretary Florencio Abad, said Villar missed “the whole point about this campaign.”
All about character
Abad said in a phone interview that the issue in the coming May 2010 election was about character and not about one’s breadth of experience.
“That character centers around decency, integrity, a track record of not being tainted with any irregularity or anomaly in public service,” Abad said. “I think that’s what the people are looking for. So they put Noynoy ahead of the pack.”
He said people saw in Aquino the basic values they saw in his parents, particularly the President, whose death on Aug. 1 rekindled the so-called “Cory magic” that the son is riding on in his campaign.
Villar, 59, used the Manila Overseas Press Club’s “Presidential Series” forum on Thursday night to take a swipe at Aquino, a 49-year-old bachelor.
“I’m not perfect. I have a lot of failures in life, I have experienced difficulties. But when you look at me, you are looking at Manny Villar, what you see is what you get. You’re not looking at my mother, my father or the tycoon behind me. You are looking at Manny Villar,” he said.
The self-made billionaire from Tondo, Manila, stressed that he built his billion-peso real estate empire out of sheer hard work and patience.
Parents are important
Abad said Aquino was not yet campaigning and yet he was already topping surveys, hitting above 50 percent in voter preferences. He said Villar had to understand this.
“If you understand that, you will understand what the people want. As far as our people are concerned the qualities that they would like to see in the leader are the qualities of integrity, decency, transparency and accountability in public service which they don’t see in this current administration,” Abad said.
He said that the people saw these qualities in Aquino’s parents. Abad said that these examples would be emulated by the son “given the opportunity to serve as president.”
“That’s why the parents are important because they gave you an idea of how the son can become and will be if given an opportunity to serve,” he said.
Not necessarily the best
Abad also contested Villar’s assertion that the man to beat in the presidential race may be the most popular, but “not necessarily the best.”
“The man to beat is the man who carries the aspiration of the people for change and hope,” he said. “Right now, the people are seeing that person in Noynoy.”
Villar, a former Speaker, said leadership and managerial competence was basic to the presidency.
“If you have never been elected or selected by your peers, you have never been a president of the homeowner’s association, what makes you think you can run this country?” he asked.
Villar said that the next president should hit the ground running from Day One, and not be an “OJT”—on-the-job training.
People’s trust required
To which Abad retorted: “You can be a Ph.D. in economics or a bar topnotcher as [the late strongman Ferdinand] Marcos was a brilliant lawyer, or an excellent entrepreneur, but if people do not trust you, it would be very difficult for you to govern.”
“Part of the reasons why the people trust him is he never had to engage in those politics of money, compromises and transactions,” Abad said.
He did not see anything wrong with Aquino—heir to the landed clan of the Cojuangcos—being born to wealth. “He has never abused, flaunted those circumstances of his life,” he said.
“Noynoy, having been a senator and congressman for nine years and having been himself a graduate with an economic degree, I think, has the basic qualifications to be able to take on the challenges of the presidency,” Abad said. With a report from Allison W. Lopez
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091102-233515/Aquino-twits-Villar-Wheres-your-partner
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