Legarda starting to touch base with Cebu youth?

CEBU CITY — The 2004 presidential elections are still more than a year away, but Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda may already be jumpstarting her perceived bid for the presidency.

The other day, Legarda was officially in Cebu as guest speaker at the Earth Week celebration of the University of San Carlos Girls High School.

Unofficially, she appeared to be solidifying her base among the youth by distributing hundreds of application forms for the Luntiang Pilipinas Green Crusaders, a youth organization advocating environmental preservation.

Legarda heads the Luntiang Pilipinas Foundation, its mother organization.

As she distributed the forms, the Earth Day celebration took on an air of a political stump when the catchy Legarda jingle, lifted from the Filipino folk ditty Leron Leron Sinta, wafted through the campus from loudspeakers.

Members of the Green Crusaders are given "green cards" which ostensibly entitles them to at least 10 percent discount in leading department stores and supermarkets nationwide.

But a check by The Freeman at two leading department stores and supermarkets showed the "green cards" were not yet in their list of honored discount cards.

Grace Olano, of the Ayala Center’s discount card division, said they are not yet aware of the card.

Cheryl Siao, an SM City Cebu customer service assistant, similarly claimed they have not received any memorandum to honor the "green cards" of Legarda’s Luntiang Pilipinas Foundation.

Olano and Siao suggested that Legarda may still be in the process of forging an agreement with them considering that the Green Crusaders Movement was launched just recently.

Legarda, whose term as senator expires in 2004, is widely considered by many as a potential presidential candidate although she herself said she was still doing some soul-searching about the matter.

She did admit many of her supporters are egging her to go all the way and seek the presidency.

Lakas-NUCD, the party to which she belongs, is now scouting for a standard-bearer following the announcement by President Arroyo late last month that she was not seeking a fresh term.

Among the potential candidates being considered by Lakas, aside from Legarda, are Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., Vice President Teofisto Guingona and Senators Juan Flavier, Ramon Magsaysay Jr., Noli de Castro and Franklin Drilon.

Legarda, asked to comment on whether she would be comfortable sliding down as running mate of Davide, a Cebuano whose name surfaced just days ago, was non-committal.

"I admire him," was all she said.

Joey Rufino, Lakas national executive director and political adviser to the President, said top party officials have begun efforts to persuade Davide to run for president.

Davide, in earlier interviews, said he intends to finish his term as chief justice in 2005 but did not say what his plans are after that.

Rufino said Davide, who is widely accepted as a man of integrity, can count on the huge Visayan vote to possibly propel him to the presidency. – Freeman News Service