What’s up in the VP derby?

NO ONE seems to be minding the vice presidential derby. All eyes are focused on the presidential race. Only normal. As in boxing, you center your interest on the main event, the fight for the championship title, not on the supporting bout between fighters just wanting to improve their win-loss record and advance their career.

Running for vice president to establish your viability as future contender for No. 1 does not always guarantee political advancement. It does if you win the VP contest, like Erap Estrada did as running mate of Danding Cojuangco in 1992, or like GMA, who won as running mate of Joe de Venecia in 1998. Both went on to capture the presidency in later elections. But if you lose in your VP bid, you are finished as a candidate worth considering for the top post. Consider Loren Legarda. Twice she ran for VP and twice she lost. What’s her political weight now? Apparently, on a lower scale. Not even Roy Señeres or Augusto Syjuco invited her to be their running mate, which is a shame. Legarda, if you’ll believe the consensus among coffee shop denizens, as I do, is 10 times worthier to become VP than any of the purported favorites in the race.

Is this a correct appraisal of the contenders? Let’s see.

Chiz Escudero. Very articulate. The nice thing about him is he projects himself like he knows everything he is talking about. He gives you confidence because he looks like he has figured out all existing and foreseen national problems and has the solutions laid out in his head. I don’t give a hoot about what his detractors say about him; I think he is the real thing. He has all the answers. Talk about any and all issues bedeviling the nation—poverty, crime, corruption, joblessness, row with China in the West Philippine Sea, name it, from simple to complex—and he will give you the most incisive commentary, adorned with motherhood sidebars, for the delectation of the ill-informed.

Leni Robredo. Pushed too soon onto the national stage to sell herself as a credible “vice presidentiable.” The Liberal Party did the country, Robredo and itself a great disservice by literally dragging a gentle and gracious

lady, through methods we can only imagine, to slug it out with veteran politicos in the VP derby. Here I question the sagacity of the LP leaders. Don’t they care to note that the candidate they are pushing could conceivably become, if elected, the president? This has happened in the past, not once or twice, but four times!

Osmeña, Quirino, Garcia, GMA—all ascended to the presidency from the vice presidency when Quezon, Roxas, Magsaysay and Estrada vacated Malacañang before finishing their terms. What is the point? The point is our choice for vice president should be one who has the capability by training and experience to assume the presidency if and when the unforeseen, unexpected and unwelcome happen.

Gringo Honasan. Is he still in the race? No, I am not implying that he should withdraw or has withdrawn because he has no chance of winning. I pose the question because his camp is so quiet. Not a peep from him, while the rest are on talk overdrive. Maybe Honasan is correct in not opening his trap at the drop of a hat. No talk, no mistake. He would not like to happen to him what happened to Escudero, who, wanting to preserve his title as talking champ voiced his approval of the street demo by the Iglesia ni Cristo which tied up city traffic for hours. Escudero had to backtrack like crazy when denunciation of his pandering to the INC roared at him with the fury of a storm surge. It is all right for Honasan to be careful and circumspect about his utterances, but not to the extent that the public would wonder: Where does he stand? What are his ideas to stamp out corruption, crime in the streets, and the drug problem? What would be his inputs in the next administration, assuming he wins, to promote agriculture, employment and uplift of the poor? Let us hear novel and doable ideas, not motherhood panaceas.

Bongbong Marcos. The “amazing Bongbong,” as someone in my coffee shop crowd calls him, astounded by the magical rebound of FM’s heir from the ashes of the hated dictatorship to a very serious contender for VP. The fact of the matter is that had he aimed higher and shot for the presidency as his redoubtable mother wished, the configuration of the presidential race would have changed drastically. Consider: Marcos running for president in tandem with a political kingpin from Cebu, say a Garcia, for VP. Can any team that fuses the Ilocano Nation and the Eastern Visayan Horde be more formidable? Anyway, that’s water under the bridge, Marcos having chosen to run for No. 2. What is the tea-leaves reading about his prospect in the VP derby? Bright—that is, if the vaunted Solid North comes through and delivers, and does not turn out to be what it truly is: nothing more than a well-cultivated myth.

Alan Peter Cayetano. Intelligent, hardworking, does his homework. But he needs to achieve something spectacular to catch the people’s fancy. His VP bid can gain super-traction if Digong Duterte quits his urong-sulong stance and finally runs for president with Cayetano as his running mate. Otherwise, he will just have to bide his time. He is still young and if he plays his cards well, he could become president one day.

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Dull and boring the VP derby is. Hopefully, it will become exciting when the “vice presidentiables” mix it up in the projected debate. I, for one, am most eager to see how the match-up between witty Bongbong and garrulous Chiz would come out. Bring it on!

Gualberto B. Lumauig ([email protected]) is past president of the UST Philosophy and Letters Foundation and former governor/congressman of Ifugao.