Business exec slugs it out with Rommel Padilla

GAPAN CITY , Philippines  – A businessman sitting as the top honcho in at least five companies is again plunging into politics from the corporate world to slug it out with a prominent movie actor in the race for Nueva Ecija’s highly coveted second highest executive post.

Considered one of this city’s proud sons, Gay Padiernos – more popularly known as GP – is seeking the vice governorship under the banner of the Unang Sigaw Partido ng Pagbabago opposite senior board member Rommel Padilla of the Bagong Lakas ng Nueva Ecija in a match considered as crucial as the gubernatorial battle between reelectionist Gov. Aurelio Umali and outgoing Vice Gov. Edward Thomas Joson.

The Padiernos-Padilla match-up is largely viewed here as a showdown involving a corporate boardroom boss and someone whose claim to fame came from the kleigh lights. They compete for political supremacy in Nueva Ecija, a politics-crazy province whose fascination with movie personalities had seen the election into office of Padilla and the likes of starlet Barbara Milano.

Novo Ecijanos were so star-struck with Padilla in 2007 and Milano in 2004 that they emerged the top vote-getters, Padilla as senior board member and Milano as senior councilor in Talavera town. 

Nueva Ecija had also seen the rejection of the electorate of stars themselves, like in the case of Padilla’s younger brother Robin who lost to Oscar Tinio in the battle for vice governor in 1995 and Milano herself who, after coming out as top councilor in Talavera in 2004, ended up outside of the Magic 8 in her reelection bid in 2007.

Padiernos was unfazed by Padilla’s showbiz exploits, saying he was merely offering his services to a discerning electorate.

He hails from a poor family in this city. He is a scion of Filemon Padiernos and the former Francisca Oanes, both of whom are teachers.

Because he belongs to a poor family, he said he was forced to do odd jobs to finish his education, once working as driver of the boss of his elder brother Roy while taking up a civil engineering course at the Mapua Institute of Technology.

Padiernos said the fight between him and the elder Padilla could be a reprise of 1995, pointing out that the fact that Tinio also hails from Gapan and Robin from Cuyapo like Rommel, was no sheer coincidence. “There’s a sense of déjà vu here and it’s 1-0 in favor of Gapan City,” he said.