FPJ in spotlight as start of campaign period nears

The character and credentials of the front-runner for the Philippine presidency, movie star Fernando Poe, will be in focus as President Arroyo and her five rivals head for the hustings tomorrow.

The latest surveys suggest the May 10 vote has boiled down to a two-horse race, with US-trained economist Mrs. Arroyo up against Poe, a hugely popular film icon sometimes described as the local equivalent of John Wayne.

Aides said Arroyo would start campaigning tomorrow in Cavinti town in Laguna, while Poe would hold a rally in Manila.

With a nine-point poll lead over Arroyo, the Poe camp is sure he has a lock on the presidency.

However, the 64-year-old multi-millionaire is on the defensive over questions on his capability to lead the fractious nation of 82 million through to 2010.

After fighting off a disqualification case on charges that he is not a natural-born Filipino, Poe, who is being widely touted for his "integrity," was forced to admit last week that he fathered an illegitimate son.

His spokesman later acknowledged that there are more love children in Poe’s closet.

Poe quit high school at 14 to pursue a successful movie career, building a huge fan base which he hopes will now translate into votes. His friend Joseph Estrada, now imprisoned and being tried for corruption, used the same formula in winning the presidency in 1998.

Mrs. Arroyo, the former vice president who replaced Estrada, has warned voters not to gamble on "untested leadership, failed governance and the prospects of the Philippines once again becoming the laughing stock of the world."

The rise of Poe, who has never held public office and has not laid out a campaign platform, has roiled the capital markets.

The peso fell to an all-time low of 55.85 to $1 when he announced his candidacy in late November, struck a new low of 55.90 to $1 on Jan. 27 when he won a preliminary ruling allowing him to stand for the presidency and tanked again at 56.20 to $1 last Feb. 3 with the release of the latest polls showing him as the election frontrunner.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the Philippines’ main sovereign credit ratings by a notch, citing political uncertainty ahead of the election among others.

Poe says his economic advisers are drafting his program of government, and hit out at the sniping from big business.

"If they lack confidence in me (they should remember that) the people’s confidence is lacking in our government," he said in a television interview last week.

Survey results suggest a split along class lines, with the President the preferred candidate of the ABC elite and Poe the DE lower-class segment.

Unfortunately for her, the poor make up more than 80 percent of the electorate.

Mrs. Arroyo last week stopped government demolitions of shantytowns in Manila over the next six months. Aides denied she did it to court the poor’s vote.

Veteran campaign strategist Tony Gatmaitan suggests Arroyo should instead convince independent presidential candidate and estranged ally Raul Roco to withdraw from the race.

However former education secretary Roco, who polled 19 percent to Mrs. Arroyo’s 27 percent and Poe’s 36 percent, insists the surveys showed that 73 percent of the people want a "change in leadership."

Leland de La Cruz, director of the development studies program of the Ateneo de Manila University, said the polling trends suggest Roco or Mrs. Arroyo partisans would eventually transfer their support to the one more likely to defeat Poe.

"The President is benefiting from the dynamics," he said.

The other candidates are senator and former police chief Panfilo Lacson, televangelist Eddie Villanueva and Eddie Gil, an obscure candidate who claims to be a multi-millionaire. — AFP