Bayani Fernando just resigned from the administration party and as MMDA chairman and teamed up with Senator Richard Gordon. They both filed their Certificates of Candidacy at the COMELEC today. Gordon is running for president while Bayani Fernando will contest others for the vice presidential post.
Another who also filed a bid for the presidency is Senator Jamby Madrigal. Madrigal still has at least another dig at the senatorial race but she surprised everyone by filing her COC. Madrigal is determined to slug it out with presidential bets Liberal Party’s Noynoy Aquino, Joseph Estrada, Gibo Teodoro, Manny Villar, JC delos Reyes, and Nicanor Perlas.
Interesting also that political heavyweights such as Loren Legarda, Mar Roxas, Edu Manzano, Perfecto Yasay and now, Bayani Fernando will fight it out as vice presidents. Surveys show Roxas at the top of the heap but things might get a little bit bumpy in the first few months of the campaign. This is the second time for Loren and still smarting from a loss in 2004, Legarda might just pull this one off.
Many analysts say its a toss up between Manny Villar and possibly Noynoy Aquino. Both have big political machineries and both are ready for the final push, although many say Aquino’s electoral machine is sputtering. Gibo’s numbers are rising, thanks to star power. Erap’s numbers are not really improving and some say, Erap might just give way to Villar should his numbers stay as it is or even plummet. That’s why, they say, they both don similar campaign colors. Villar and Erap have similar constituencies and in the final stretch, it is all a question of who between them has the strongest will to fight it out in the end. Villar will use all his financial resources for victory, compared with Erap whose finances are suspect.
Eddie Villanueva’s quest for the presidency seemed a little bit like JC delos Reyes and of Noynoy’s. They all want to project that they’re THE ONE that would change things. Yet, despite their so-called platforms of government, no one really stands out as the one. Noynoy’s handlers want to project an imaginary tsunami of support, yet, all they get now is some semblance of support, but not in the big way.
Gordon’s declaration is a veritable declaration of war against Lakas-Kampi CMD which fielded Gilbert Gibo Teodoro. Gordon might just eat up some or even most of Gibo’s constituency and this is surely not good news for the administration. Many pro-Arroyo groups want Gibo simply because he’s the only candidate who expressed the intention to give way to charter change proposals. Other candidates who feel the same way about cha-cha includes Erap, Villar and even Noynoy. Not surprising since these personalities belong to the same class, the elite class who salivates for constitutional change to further open up the economy and allow investments to come in.
Eventually, this titanic battle between political heavyweights would all result to one thing—a win for the peculiar, the one who’s different and the one who really worked hard to win. We may yet again get a minority president and we may, yet again, see a perpetuation of oligarchic rule and this is not surprising, since, for the past years, we failed to anoint someone fit enough as our president.
December 1st, 2009 @ Ricky Rivera
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