Defensor named Arroyo campaign spokesman

President Arroyo has named Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Chairman Michael Defensor as her official campaign spokesman.

Defensor, the youngest member in the Arroyo Cabinet, confirmed his appointment to The STAR yesterday but stressed the President simply gave him the task.

"But we’re not in the campaign mode yet," he said. "The President would like to stay focused on good governance for the remaining months before the campaign," Defensor said.

Defensor, a member of the Liberal Party which is in political alliance with the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, said he will play his role as Mrs. Arroyo’s spokesman for the 2004 presidential elections.

Last month, Mrs. Arroyo announced she will seek a full six-year term next year, reversing her earlier decision not run.

Mrs. Arroyo took over the presidency in succeeding over President Joseph Estrada who was deposed by a military-backed people power revolt in January 2001.

Defensor, a former Quezon City congressmen who was one of the "Spice Boys" in the House of Representatives, was among the original Cabinet members whom President Arroyo recruited.

Mrs. Arroyo said she originally wanted the 34-year old Defensor to run for the Senate in the next year’s elections but is disqualified since he is two months short of the required age of 35.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Luis "Sito" Lorenzo said yesterday he is not running for the Senate in the next year’s elections.

"I’m not running although the Mindanao bloc (of lawmakers) has endorsed me," Lorenzo said.

"But I told them I cannot leave the farmers in the middle of these programs and projects that I have started in agriculture," he told The STAR.

Defensor and Lorenzo are among the Cabinet officials who accompany Mrs. Arroyo to her provincial sorties in distributing housing and land tenure certificates to farmers and urban poor groups.

Mrs. Arroyo credited Defensor for surpassing the target of 150,000 units of low cost housing and land tenure to poor families while she hailed Lorenzo for increasing the productivity of farmers through the propagation of hybrid rice.