IF Senator Francis Escudero runs for president in 2010, he will do so without a running mate, a senatorial slate or local officials following Senator Panfilo Lacson’s footsteps in 2004.“I don’t intend to find a running mate, but I might have guest senatorial candidates,” said Escudero, who has yet to announce if he is still running next year.
Escudero, who resigned from the Nationalist People’s Coalition last month, has inherited not only Lacson’s campaign style but also his campaign manager and a platform calling for the abolition of pork barrel, which has isolated him from his peers and party mates.
Escudero’s supporters scoffed at reports that his former running mate, Senator Loren Legarda, might run with Senator Manuel Villar of the Nacionalista Party as coalition talks got under way.
“Chiz [Escudero] is no longer with the NPC, so the NPC has lost Chiz, so the NPC has become another NP,” one Escudero supporter said.
But Escudero was more conciliatory to his party of 11 years, saying he still hoped to count on its support.
“I did not desert and turn my back on my party. I hope they will still be with me should I go ahead [with the presidential campaign],” he told a radio interview.
Escudero said he saw a people’s movement and multi-sectoral groups carrying him to the presidency.
He said these groups included militant leftist organizations and the Magdalo, which launched a botched mutiny in July 2003.
The Magdalo, led by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who is still detained on rebellion charges, has endorsed Escudero’s presidential bid. Escudero called the mutineers and rebel soldiers “patriots.”
Escudero also inherited from Lacson the latter’s campaign manager and chief of staff, former postmaster general Angelito Banayo.
It is unclear if the Chinese community that bankrolled Lacson’s presidential campaign would also back Escudero in 2010.
And like Lacson, Escudero refused to slide down to number two when he was courted by Villar to be a running mate so that the fragmented opposition would unite against administration candidate and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who won the nomination as standard-bearer of the Lakas-Kampi CMD.
Teodoro’s nomination will be made official during the Lakas-Kampi CMD national convention on Nov. 19.
Lacson’s fellow opposition and presidential rival, the late action king Fernando Poe Jr., had tried to convince him to run as his vice president.
The negotiations fell through because Lacson reportedly demanded that he be reimbursed P100 million for his campaign expenses and be given five major Cabinet portfolios, including the departments of budget, finance, and interior and local governments.
Both ended up losing to President Gloria Arroyo, who beat Poe by a million votes and Lacson who placed a far third with only three million votes.
Escudero is hoping his popularity in the past polls will help him avoid the same fate.
In the 2007 mid-term elections, Escudero ranked second behind Legarda in the senatorial race, with Lacson coming in third, Villar in fourth, Senator Francis Pangilinan in fifth, and Senator Benigno Aquino III in sixth.
But the militant Bayan Muna and Gabriela did not seem too keen on Escudero’s solo flight.
Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said that even with Escudero gone from the NPC, Bayan continued to negotiate with Legarda and Villar.
Before Escudero left the NPC, he negotiated an alliance with Bayan Muna that gave the party-list group two slots in the NPC senatorial slate.
In separate negotiations with the NP, party spokesman Gilbert Remulla said the party could allot one seat to Bayan Muna.
If Villar and Legarda join forces, that would give Bayan Muna three senatorial slots in next year’s elections.
But Ocampo said Bayan Muna could settle for two seats in the Senate—one for himself and the other for Gabriela Rep. Liza Largoza-Maza.
“We factor the option that [Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro] Teddy [Casiño] will head the Bayan Muna nominees and take over my role in the House of Representatives,” Ocampo told Standard Today.
Casiño has one term left in the House.
Among the issues that Escudero had with the NPC was its support for wage boards as a means to set the minimum wage. Like his leftist allies, Escudero supported legislated wage increases.
But NPC insiders said the most contentious issue that “marginalized and isolated” Escudero from the NPC was his position to carry in his campaign platform a call to abolish the pork barrel, which Lacson also supported in 2004.
Lacson carried the same platform and made good his promise when he was reelected to the Senate in 2007. Since then, he has not identified any projects and has not drawn from his annual allocation of P130 million in pork barrel.
“Of course, no one wanted to give up his or her pork barrel allocations,” said Valenzuela Rep. Rex Gatchalian. “I, for one, am not agreeable because the annual P70-million pork barrel allocation for congressmen helps my district in a big way, particularly in infrastructure projects.”
Gatchalian confirmed that the pork barrel issue was among the serious differences in ideology and platform that made Escudero part ways with the NPC.
Escudero, who denied reports that he left the party over differences in campaign funding, said he resigned because he did not want to be beholden to any political party. With Fel V. Maragay
Source: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=/2009/november/5/news3.isx&d=/2009/november/5
Chiz is a fast thinker and a good talker. That's all there is to it. He spent 11 years with NPC just to resign because he did not want to be beholden to any political party. I am sorry that he wants to be President at a young age. Is it to set some guinness record of sorts. Anyway, he is too vulnerable and he would be easily used by the administration to divide the opposition. Poor Chiz, do not be misled.
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