Until December 10 rolls by, nothing is final as far as the race for the national posts are concerned, with the PDP-Laban opening its door for Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to become its presidential candidate.
In the meantime, there have been incessant talks about the vice presidentiables who are each responsible for their own success but can also impact significantly on the prospects of their running mates.
Take for example Sen. Francis Escudero who was seen in Davao City recently meeting Vice President Jejomar Binay.
Not a casual meet and greet but an actual meeting that lasted for a good several minutes.
Those familiar with the senator, whose ascent to the national political arena began in earnest with his strident opposition to the nearly decade-long rule of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, see the Binay meeting as something to be questioned in light of his partnership with Sen. Grace Poe, who is riding on the same reform-themed platform that the incumbent administration has been bandying about as its rallying cry, albeit in her own fashion.
With Binay suffering from a steep ratings dive, the vice president’s meeting with the senator fueled speculations that he was trying to wangle a deal with Escudero, who along with Poe may be running as independent candidates but are heavily backed by the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), a party that seeks to break away from its alliance with the Liberal Party.
Such speculations cannot be easily dismissed owing to the status of the Poe-Escudero tandem as front runners in a wide field of candidates. And Escudero’s infamous support of the Aquino-Binay tandem in the 2010 elections that cost LP standard-bearer Mar Roxas a shot at the vice presidency showed that while he may correctly position himself in issues of national interest, he isn’t above playing politics for expediency and personal advantage.
It’s not only Escudero who’s in the limelight. Thanks to President Benigno Aquino III’s recent comments on him, Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s vice presidential bid got exposure that foes of the Marcos martial law regime may feel as unwarranted.
While many would agree with Aquino’s call for the Marcoses to apologize for what they did to the country and feel outraged over the senator’s dismissal of that call, a growing population of young voters who didn’t grow up during that dark period may not fully appreciate the lasting damage that it had wrought on the country.
Again, the full impact of the actions of these two vice presidentiables may not be known until the coming months.
Until then, the public may want to monitor them along with the presidentiables and other vice presidentiables in order to determine who among them deserve their votes.