Chestnuts are roasting on an open fire and so are most of the presidential bets.
Mar Roxas and Rody Duterte are threatening to slap each other over serious doubts on their credentials — Roxas’ Wharton degree and Davao’s peace record.
If both don’t watch out, someone else is going to benefit after they’ve slapped each other to smithereens — much like in 2010, when Jejomar Binay emerged from seemingly out of nowhere as Mar and Sen. Loren Legarda were jostling for No. 1.
To those who are for President Aquino’s anointed, a Roxas presidency is going to be clean and honest, and will boast of sound economic policies. They believe what the country needs is another six years of clean government in order for Daang Matuwid to not only be a campaign slogan for one political party — but a mindset. With this mindset, the youth will find it but natural to join government or the military to serve — and not to enrich themselves.
According to a source, US Ambassador Philip Goldberg believes the Philippines’ reputation on the world stage is at its best at the moment because of the positive perception of the Aquino government.
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I was having a casual conversation recently with four millennials, graduates of both UP and the Ateneo, and all four are considering voting for Davao’s Rody Duterte. They actually like his strongman ways.
These are the young men and women who were born after EDSA, who have no idea of what life was like under a dictatorship. Like most of the youth, they are probably impatient for results — solutions to the traffic, the glacial pace of most of the judicial processes.
They belong to the generation that is widely travelled and after coming home from such places as Singapore and Hong Kong, they hanker for a mass transit system that works, people who do not litter and jaywalk, and respect all the queues and the traffic lights.
Even former Manila Mayor Fred Lim, known as “Dirty Harry” during his stint as Manila’s police chief for his reported unorthodox but effective ways of keeping peace and order, is going to support Duterte even if he is officially with the Liberal Party.
Lim says he will personally talk to Mar Roxas, his party’s standard bearer, about his decision. In Tagalog, this is known as “pasintabi.”
Lim says that one of his greatest achievements during his term as mayor was the provision of free medical services for the underserved and this is his promise if elected: the resumption of such services, among others.
He also belies reports that he left Manila with nothing in its coffers, saying that when he stepped down, a report by the Office of the City Treasurer dated July 5, 2013 showed that Manila had P805,034,207.44 in the vault and in three banks — Land Bank, Development Bank of the Philippines and the Philippine National Bank.
Lim, who is turning 86 next week, says he jogs every day and can “outrun even a 20- or 30-year-old.”
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Even now, Sen. Grace Poe has my admiration for her steadfastness. You never see her rattled, running scared or disheartened. This early, you could see that she has grace under pressure. By the way, she is facing all the torpedoes aimed at her, you know that if elected President, she’s going to be tough, seasoned, and tested. If she is elected, I don’t think anything or anyone will faze her. Dogged by cases left and right questioning her citizenship, her residency — in essence, the very attributes that make her eligible to run for the highest post in the land — Grace is unbowed and unbroken.
“I’m becoming braver as the fight gets longer,” she told the audience during the recent Go Negosyo presidentiable series at the Solaire Ballroom.
(“Growing up I’ve had many struggles,” she once told me. “But my Mom always tells me, ‘magdasal ka, magtrabaho ka at tibayan mo ang loob mo.’ Even when I was a child, she was never over protective because she believes that a healthy dose of disappointment can build character.”)
That character is being tested under the open fire now.
“Pag masyado kang binubugbog, mamamanas na rin ang mukha mo. Ang dasal ko lang ay ito — na maging matapang ako pero ‘wag mawala ang aking pagiging sensitibo sa pangangailangan ng nangangailangan,” she said at the Go Negosyo forum.
At the recent Hotdog concert at the PICC — which brought the house down by bringing the people to their feet — Grace was visibly relaxed (she says she also finds reading a novel “totally unrelated to my problems” relaxing). She was with her husband Neil Llamanzares and the Hotdog Band led by the brothers Dennis and Rene Garcia surprised her with a song especially for her.
Singing in the style of the late Fernando Poe Jr., Roy Rico Pangilinan, singing to the tune of You and I, sung, “Ikaw ang bida, ako ang extra, sa teleserye nating dalawa.”
Come to think of it, if she becomes President, Grace Poe would indeed end up to be a leading lady in her own right. Not just in the eyes of FPJ and Susan Roces, but also in the country’s never-ending teleserye. (You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)