Loren likely to run for VP in ’04

HUALIEN, Taiwan — Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda said here yesterday she will likely join the 2004 vice presidential race but gave no assurance that she would remain with the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrat (Lakas-CMD) party.

"Most likely, I will run for vice president next year. But nothing is definite in this world and we can’t tell what will happen," she told The STAR here.

Legarda, who topped the senatorial election in 1998, had admitted that many presidential aspirants from other political parties have been courting her to be their running mate.

"I still have to look into the offers but I am really hoping that I will get the (endorsement) of the Lakas party," she said.

Among the parties that are reportedly eyeing Legarda as a vice presidential candidate are former senator Raul Roco’s Aksyon Demokratiko and the opposition faction of Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

Legarda is now in the last year of her first six-year term as a senator. She is still allowed to seek re-election next year under the Constitution.

Legarda and her husband, former Batangas governor Antonio Leviste, are in Taiwan to witness the presentation to the media of one-year-old Filipino conjoined twins Lea and Rachel Awel.

The twins were born conjoined at the upper abdomen and chest to couple Marieta and Andy Awel of Bagtayan, Pasil town in the northern province of Kalinga.

The twins were separated during a seven-hour operation sponsored by the Tzu Chi Foundation, founded in Hualien by 67-year-old Master Cheng Yen, a female Buddhist monk.

Leviste, in his spontaneous speeches here, talked about his possible retirement after the 2004 polls, when his wife would be seeking "higher office."

"In the Philippines, when nothing can be said against those in (government) office, they find fault with the spouses instead. I’m afraid I’ll end up the (whipping) boy, so I better retire after 2004," he said.

This developed as Legarda called on the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) to include the screening of newborn babies in its coverage.

Legarda said that such testing should be mandatory because around 10,000 babies die in the Philippines each year from preventable diseases.

"Pregnant mothers should undergo proper prenatal care so that they could monitor the condition of their babies. Some babies may look healthy but they could only be suffering silently," she added.

In a survey conducted by the IBON Foundation during the fourth quarter of 2002 and released last February, Legarda garnered the highest votes for vice presidentiables, followed by Sen. Noli de Castro.

The same survey, however, showed that she was not among the respondents’ top three choices for president.

Legarda and Lacson were among those criticized in late April for their television advertisements, which they claimed do not constitute election campaigning.

Legarda, frequently seen on television endorsing a certain brand of laundry soap, said that unlike election campaign propaganda, she did not spend for the advertisements and that she was in fact paid for them.

Questions about whether TV ads were product endorsement or part of campaigning were raised when an advertisement praising Lacson, when he was Philippine National Police chief during the Estrada administration, started appearing on television.