Heed David’s lead

The race to become the country’s next Vice President (VP) is as equally as tight as the fight among the presidential candidates in the coming May 9 elections. This excludes former presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella, an independent candidate, who is running without any VP bet. Nonetheless, all the aspirants to the second highest elective position of the land, the VP wannabes are also in fierce competition with each other along with their respective presidential standard-bearers.

Who are the VP aspirants? Let’s name them in alphabetical order in the same sequence as they were listed in the official ballots of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). They are, as follows: Buhay Party List Representative Lito Atienza; former Akbayan party list congressman Walden Bello; pro-life advocate Rizalito David; Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio; businessman Manny Lopez; Dr. Willie Ong; Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan; Atty. Carlos Serapio; and, Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III.

We have seen and heard the seven VP bets who attended and engaged each other during their first face-off together at one stage. Except for Atienza and Mayor Sara, the seven of them participated in the first of the three Comelec-organized VP debates held at the Sofitel Hotel in Roxas Boulevard last Sunday (March 20).

An excellent debater in every House plenary deliberations, Atienza could not at the moment join the VP debate. Having recently gone through a surgery for his damaged knee, Atienza declared at the outset he is not pushing his VP bid but will strongly campaign for Sen. Manny Pacquiao to win the presidential race.

The daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, on the other hand, declared she intends not to engage also anyone in VP debates in a show of unity with her presidential standard-bearer, ex-Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (BBM). Isn’t that stretching a bit too far their so-called BBM-Sara UniTeam?

BBM did not join the first Comelec-led presidential debate held the night before the VP debate was done at the same venue. BBM previously attended a presidential debate sponsored by the SMNI TV network owned by his political ally, Pastor Quiboloy. However, BBM debated with only two other presidential bets, namely, Abella and labor leader Leody de Guzman.

The absence of BBM and Mayor Sara from their respective debates forum did not spare them from being whacked by 76-year-old Bello, a human rights and social activist running under the Partido Lakas ng Masa. Bello, the VP runningmate of De Guzman, questioned why Comelec allowed both BBM and Mayor Duterte to reject the poll body’s invitation to join the debate. Bello threatened “to walk out” of the stage to dramatize his extreme disgust over the absence of the front-running candidates in their respective debate arena.

Newly installed Comelec chairman Saidaman Pangarungan subsequently announced they would consider Bello’s complaint. He promised to look into how the poll body could address this issue before the next two scheduled Comelec debates take place next month.

Other than the stage rants of Bello, what stood out most during the VP debate that night was the challenge hurled by David to his fellow candidates. The 60-year-old David is running under the Democratic Party of the Philippines. He is teamed up with presidential candidate and businessman Jose Montemayor.

David rightly noted both BBM and Mayor Sara have been consistently topping the pre-election mock polls. BBM and Mayor Sara have been getting no less than 50% of the respondents as their No. 1 choice to elect as President and VP candidate, respectively.

Sadly, David rued, the other half or 50% of the rest of the respondents are being divided among the rest of the other VP candidates, including himself. Actually, it is less than 50% because about 10 to 15% are still “undecided” whom to vote from the latest surveys done by both the Social Weather Station (SWS) and the Pulse Asia.

David urgently implored his fellow aspirants lagging and in the tail end of the VP race to instead withdraw and just “to unite” behind one very strong candidate. David failed though to mention who deserves to be supported by all of them as he tried to beat a 90-second time limit for closing remarks. Interviewed later by reporters at the venue, David pointed to Sotto as the strongest candidate they can field together as common VP bet to match the strength of frontrunner Mayor Sara.

“United they stand, divided they fall,” as one popular idiom goes.

A veteran lawmaker, Sotto is the VP candidate of Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. Concurrently the president of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), Sotto has also been the consistent second runner-up in the pre-election mock polls. Sotto is actually not far behind the numbers of Mayor Sara as the next most preferred VP candidate in all surveys, too.

Sotto is sticking out his neck though with Lacson after the latter suffered major setback last week. The Partido Reporma chieftain, former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, withdrew party support from Lacson. Ostensibly due to Lacson’s low survey ratings, Alvarez shifted local party support to VP Leni Robredo as their new presidential candidate. Alvarez denied Lacson’s public disclosure the Reporma withdrawal of support was due to “P800 million” worth of reason.

Incidentally, Pacquiao earlier last week publicly declared he would “vote for” Lacson if he was not running in this presidential race. Like Mrs. Robredo, Lacson considers himself now as “independent” candidate after he resigned from Reporma. Alvarez announced, however, Reporma decided to keep Sotto as the VP candidate bet still of their party.

Naturally, the support of Alvarez to Sotto was a direct affront to Mrs. Robredo’s VP runningmate, Liberal Party chieftain, Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan. Being related by affinity to Sotto, Pangilinan is not taking it against their Senate president. After all, Pangilinan’s wife, actress-singer Sharon Cuneta is the niece of Sotto.

From among the VP bets, Sotto has the best chance of holding the banner against Mayor Sara. Pangilinan and the other VP bets could heed the lead of David. Like the biblical battle of David versus Goliath, Sotto stands ready and capable to lead the VP fight.