Sen. Manny Villar makes no bones about it.
He wants to be President.
And working along that premise he has made sure even the recipients of his relief aid packs during this disaster season remember who is making the doleouts.
Some may not agree with the polioticking but hey Mr. Villar has never denied that he’s a trsditional politician.
Nuff said.
The elections are still 7 month away but the survey numbers have essentially narrowed the field of ‘serious’ candidates to Sen. Noynoy Aquino, Sen MannyVillar, ex president Estrada, Sen. Chiz Escudero, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro, and evangelist Eddie Villanueva.
And if we are to believe the latest dipstick of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) putative administration bet Teodoro will get a quite severe drubbing while Aquino, despite his impressive lead, will be in for a battle royale against Villar, Estrada, and Estrada, assuming the come-backing former president is disqualified from running.
Mr. Teodoro’s dismal rating demolishes the myth peddled by administration partisans that when ‘anointed’ the administration coalition standard bearer would see his voter preference rating hitting the double digit mark.
The truth is if the coffee shop tongue-waggers are given credence, Teodoro may even be lose out to a new administration wannabee when the formal Lakas-KAMPI-CMD nominating convention is held very soon.
The person could very well be public works secretary Hermogenes Ebdane.
Ahead of the release of the SWS’s latest survey(Sept. 118-21,2009), news reports have all but affirmed even the presidential and vice presidential pairings.
These are the Aquino- (Mar)Roxas, Villar-(Noli) De Castro, Estrada-(Jojo) Binay, and Escudero-(Loren) Legarda tickets.
These past nearly three weeks marked by the disastrous floods and landslides have forced the aspirants to either prudently delay their official declarations (like in the case of Natonslist People’s Coalition bet Escudeo) or push their political agenda unashamedly (like Villar’s ‘branded’ relief packs).
Of course, the top-of-mind political reports cannot be ‘encashed’ yet, but they do tend to influence the thinking of the undecideds.
But hey, paraphrasing the poem, the wannabees have miles to go before they can sleep, with room for further realignments, and even dropouts, before the next President is installed in Malacanang.
It would be bad form to open a brand new, post-typhoon week with a rant. But officials of the Department of Education led by putative administration senatorial candidate Jesli Lapus should be told evacuees temporarily housed in schools cannot just be shooed away. This is not happening wholesale but as most of us lucky souls go back to our pre-Ondoy and pre-Pepeng routines, we mustn’t forget thousands remain huddled in evacuation centers, dependent on the kindness of donors for their sustenance. Particularly disturbing is how scores of schools in Marikina and Cainta, the two hardest hits locales of Metro Manila have served you-must-go-home-now notices to the refugees. Go home where? Education undersecretary Ramon Bacani says the options include herding the evacuees to covered courts and some such available spaces. That’s it??? It took government nearly two days to get its act together evacuating the victims of Ondoy given its utter lack of disaster preparedness. Will it now drop the ball in the post typhoon phase???
