Citizens’ candidate?
By Belinda Olivares-Cunanan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:58:00 03/31/2010
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THE RESIGNATION OF LAKAS-KAMPI CMD presidential candidate Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro as party chair last
Tuesday evening was not (and couldn’t have been) taken at face value. Teodoro was quoted as saying he
wanted to devote all his efforts to his campaign, whereas the job of party chair requires attending 24/7 to the
requirements of the other party candidates, especially at the local level, which he could no longer do.
It sounds logical, but the problem is that reports have been swirling around regarding inadequate funding.
There is also the perception that the party machinery, the biggest and most powerful in the country, has not
been cranking as efficiently as it should. There are party members who don’t seem to have the courage and
decisiveness to support Teodoro’s candidacy for reasons of their own. I was in Bacolod recently, and I noted
from the super-large volunteer group feverishly working for Gibo’s candidacy that Rep. Monico Puentevella,
supposedly a Lakas stalwart, seemed neither here nor there. In Bacolod , it’s citizen power that’s propelling
Gibo.
Moreover, former President Fidel Ramos was quoted recently as opining that candidates who lag behind in
surveys should not be worried as it only means they have to work harder. Then in his usual enigmatic way,
FVR said that Gibo would surge forward if he follows the advice he gave him. There are reports that the 50
governors from various political parties in full support of Gibo are clamoring for a more definitive role of FVR
in his campaign. Time will tell how the Lakas dilemma—a super-machinery that’s not cranking as well yet,
but enough to propel a very marketable candidate if it does—would resolve itself. The thought has surfaced
that perhaps Gibo could be truly the citizens’ candidate, and not just of one party.
* * *
This Holy Thursday, as we reflect on the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus, I am tempted to think about
how an 86-year-old lady afflicted with glaucoma must be suffering over the way her family is being portrayed
by the camp of the arch-rival of her son, Manny Villar. Aling Curing Villar used to run a little sari-sari store in
Singalong for many years, even when her son Manny was already Senate President, and had to quit only
about two years ago when her vision was blurring. Now she must be suffering because no less than the LP
presidential candidate, Noynoy Aquino, has assailed her son for allegedly lying. Noynoy and his allies have
repeatedly said that the fact that the elder Villars brought their sick 10-year-old son Danny to FEU Hospital
and later, after he died, Funeraria Paz provided the service, meant that the Villars couldn’t have been poor.
The assertion of the Aquino camp is that the Villars were lying about their economic status, since a truly poor
family would have run for urgent medical needs to the Philippine General Hospital or the San Lazaro
Hospital, and they couldn’t have afforded Funeraria Paz. Manny Villar, in defense of their family, stressed that
his brother was brought to the FEU Hospital ’s charity ward, not to its pay ward, with the help of a relative who
had connections with that hospital. But ultimately Danny died of leukemia because they couldn’t afford the
intensive and expensive treatment that this illness demanded.
* * *
Frankly my stomach retches over the way the Aquino camp has gone into an extensive investigation of the
details of this episode in utter disregard of compassion and decency. The elder Villar lady must have
suffered immensely from the death of that young boy. Must that rival camp now rake up all the sordid details?
The aim of the Noynoy camp in playing it up obviously is to prove that Villar was lying and inventing certain
circumstances about his early life of poverty that, as his ads now say, enable him to connect to the greater
masses who are poor. But surely there must be many other issues far more relevant to the life of the nation
that ought to be debated than the circumstances around the illness and death of a young boy that his 87-
year-old mother doubtless still mourns.
What has happened to decency in our midst? The Aquino camp’s ghoulish treatment of the young boy’s
death is just an example of the pettiness and cattiness that the Noynoy campaign has often displayed.
* * *
My husband was a classmate of Manny Villar in the MBA program in the UP in the early 1970s, and as a
lieutenant colonel then, he recalls how Manny, who went to school by bus then, would hitch a ride with him in
the evenings in his karag-karag car which we described as a three-door sedan because one door couldn’t
open. My husband knew at that time that his classmate had one truck which he used to haul sand and gravel
to customers. In a recent dzRH interview with Cecile Alvarez and me, Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar revealed
that her husband started his sand-and-gravel business soon after they were married in 1975, and his
deliveries gave him valuable insights into the construction business. Quickly learning the ropes with the help
of lessons from his MBA, Manny turned “this small dream” into a public company and went into low-cost
housing, starting with two houses he sold to OFWs.
* * *
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