If Imelda Marcos was former pres. Ferdinand Marcos’ “secret weapon,” it can be said that Korina Sanchez is her husband Sen./vice presidentiable Mar Roxas’ “hidden weapon.” While madame imelda was very “visible” on the campaign trail, thanks to the full-force media coverage, Korina is deliberately “invisible” because she’s doing it without fanfare in contrast to when she was still co-anchoring the abs-cbn late-evening newscast bandila when she was, well, “highly-visible.”
While the candidates go full swing in their respective campaign sorties, the wives and/or husbands choose their own way of supporting their spouses — as i’ve said, others more visibly than the rest. One would have predicted that celebrity spouses would be in the forefront of their candidate partners’ campaign trail. The public is particularly interested in the wives, of course — what they’re doing, what they’re wearing, how they either boost their husbands’ chance or how they get their husbands in trouble.
Korina was once quoted as saying that she preferred to stay away from it all as much as possible.
“I don’t want to look like a stage wife,” she said. “Mar knows I love and support him. I don’t have to be with him smiling and handing him cold towels during sorties. I think I can be of better help in other things.”
Well, that “invisibility” seems to have now changed, again without much fanfare involved.
Funfare had an exclusive phone interview with Ate Koring (as Mar and now the public fondly call her) the other day and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that she was in, as the marching song puts it, “far Zamboanga.” “Since last year, I’d been all over. But I always preferred it under the radar screen para wala masyadong nakikialam and to avoid the publicity. I’ve been having talks, mostly consultative in nature, with women’s groups and it helps me in my show, Rated K, for more story sources and personal insight. But since official campaigning started, i’ve been a lot more direct, asking people to vote for Mar.”
Korina said she prefers to do it her way, meaning seldom, if ever, side by side with mar who’s the liberal party running mate of sen. Noynoy Aquino. “I have a sortie schedule apart from mar’s so that we cover a bigger area and get to more voters. It’s not easy. Mainit, maalikabok, siksikan. But it’s a lot of fun. I bring one of my brothers along and a cousin of mar’s and we end up squeezing in the tourist activities between functions.”
On the campaign trail, korina wows ‘em as if she herself is the one running.
A Noynoy-Mar team member recalled the comment of a reporter who recently interviewed Korina: “Nakakamangha siya, a one-woman show. Siya na ang host, napapatawa niya ang crowd, nagpapa-contest, nakikisayaw, tapos kumakanta pa siya!” That’s the side of korina people have never seen before and they give her a thumbs-up for that.
“Well, you know, if you’ve been on tv for as long as i have you sort of know what makes audiences understand better, respond better,” said Korina. “In this case, I’m just a wife telling everyone that mar cares for them, knows them and that we also go through the same ups and downs that most married couples do. It’s important for me that i leave the venue with people smiling and happy. Enjoy ako, maraming biruan at tawanan.”
Korina usually wears maong and comfortable shoes with her husband’s signature royal blue map shirt. And, of course, she also wears Noynoy’s yellow shirt. “Wherever I go I always bark my lungs out for Noynoy Aquino as well.”
Korina has been through more than 30 towns all over the country so far and is scheduled to reach as many as possible before may 10.
(e-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph or at entphilstar@yahoo.com)