Leni Robredo: Dark horse on fast lane

CANBERRA—The decision of Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo to stand as running mate of Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas opened the battle for the vice presidency as the key arena that would determine the outcome of the May 2016 polls.

The battle pits Robredo against the vice presidential candidates of Jejomar Binay, head of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance, and of Grace Poe, who leapfrogged into the presidential race on the vehicle of a hastily assembled, mysterious “Third Force.”

Representative Robredo, widow of Jesse Robredo, the former mayor of Naga City and interior secretary who died in a plane crash three years ago, marked her entry into the vice presidential race without fanfare and with uncommon humility, but with more experience and solid academic credentials than Poe. Roxas had gone out of his way to woe Poe as his running mate, but she unceremoniously dismissed out of hand his overtures.

In contrast, when Robredo was offered the second slot on the LP ticket, she initially considered herself not prepared to be shoehorned into higher office, not even the Senate; she admitted she was hardly known nationally, outside the boundaries of her congressional district in Camarines Sur.

According to her, before she decided to accept the LP offer, she went through rounds of consultations with her political allies in Naga City and her three daughters. An examination of her public service record, experience and academic and professional credentials shows she has a broader and more solid foundation than Poe who is eyeing the presidency in a first try, without any previous substantial public service apprenticeship to back her soaring ambition.

The Roxas-Robredo team now leaves Binay without a running mate. Binay is still shopping around for a running mate in a field of possibilities that includes members of the Nacionalista Party.

Comparing the academic credentials of Poe and Robredo, the latter earned a degree in economics in 1986 at the University of the Philippines, finished law at the University of Nueva Caceres in Naga and passed the bar in 1997. On the other hand, Poe claims to be a UP alumna. We have no record on what degree she earned at UP. Her public service record shows that before she was elected to the Senate in 2013, she was chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, an adopted daughter of the late movie action “King,” Fernando Poe Jr., who lost the alleged fraud-marred presidential election in 2004 to Gloria Arroyo.

We are not going into an examination of these irrelevant issues that surround Poe’s qualifications for the presidency. We have neither the time nor appetite to indulge in muckraking issues, including her biological provenance and legitimacy (which is none of our business). We are more concerned with the links of her overweening ambitions to her capacity to deliver results on the 20-point platform she has spelled out.

In the wake of Robredo’s entry as a dark horse in the battle for the vice presidency, a new issue has emerged: Will her credentials give more clout to the winnability of her principal. And in the case of the vice presidential candidates yet undeclared, the question is: Are they capable of providing the muscle to drive their principals up the path to electoral victory? Another question: How much weight do platforms carry in mobilizing votes? In the case of Robredo, who seems charismatic enough to make up for the bureaucratic blandness of her standard bearer, it is not a reckless comment to say that her charisma and professional assets can drive up the momentum of Roxas’ campaign—up to a point; charisma has its own limits.

While Robredo is holding back the fire power of her political gifts, Poe is the opposite and oozes with presumptuous declarations. She is on the overdrive and is obviously trying to impress us that her 20-point agenda is a cure-all that covers all aspects of good governance. The fact is, it is nothing than a collection of newspaper headlines, cobbled by balderdash and heavy doses of motherhood statements, short on proposals as to how her goals would be realized. It’s wide-ranging scope embraces—indeed, it offers—a planetary world view that includes infrastructure development, lower taxes, fair wages, the Mindanao power brownouts, the plight of overseas Filipino workers, foreign affairs (the West Philippine Sea dispute is highlighted), climate change, the Metro Manila traffic congestion, more roads and MRT trains in Metro Manila, inclusive economic growth, government transparency enhanced by a Freedom of Information law, etcetera ad nauseam. Nothing moving in the Philippine landscape has escaped notice of her watchful eyes.

We are afraid her agenda has downgraded the value of presidential elections into a cheap sounding board of the “Impossible Dream,” which she has laid down on a mosaic of extravagant pledges and fantastic wishful thinking. It is a con game short-selling the presidency to the Filipino electorate, with a program culled from newspaper headlines. We would rather have a no-frills policy program from candidates whose feet are planted on the ground.