Who's the 'Amboy' with the Presidentiables?

History always fascinates me and if you looked back at the political history of the Philippines, it made me realize that even after the Americans gave the Philippines its independence, no Filipino President could ever hope to win Malacañang unless he was considered an American boy a.k.a. “Amboy”. This was certainly true to then Pres. Manuel Roxas, it was very true to Pres. Ramon Magsaysay and Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos . . . who was dubbed by American pundits as “a sonafabitch, but he was our sonafabitch!” People also referred to former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) as an “Amboy”.

So a question that was never asked in this Presidential campaign is who among the Presidentiables is considered an “Amboy”? Or should we rephrase that question, whether a Presidentiable tagged as an “Amboy” could win the Presidency? Now we’re bringing this issue to the realm of geopolitics, after all the Philippines lies at the crossroads between America, China or North Korea and if we played our cards right, we might just earn a new respect from these nations.

Now being tagged as an “Amboy” can be good or bad for the Presidentiable. Of course, the so-called “Nationalists” personified mostly by Filipinos who insist that we should have a national language taken from the Tagalog language will certainly shy away from voting an Amboy President. This also includes those people sympathetic to the cause of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) who have a lot of friends in the media who would certainly magnify this issue to the hilt.

But I would like to believe that the average Filipino is pro-American and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. All you need to do is look at the long lines of Filipinos lining up to get a US visa at the US Embassy in Roxas Blvd and you will know what I mean. Listen to any FM Radio station and their disc jockeys talk like American DJs and often even sound better than their US counterparts. Look at our choice of foreign movies . . . we have been enthralled with Hollywood for so long, we even have Pinoy copycats of American movies, including TV shows like American Idol, which arrived here as Pinoy Idol.

So once more, who is perceived to be the Amboy in the crop of Presidentiables? Incidentally, there is another factor to consider and that is the China factor. How important is having a pro-China candidate? I already have someone in mind, but I’ll keep it under wraps until it becomes crystal clear who this person really is.

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Last Wednesday afternoon, Nacionalista Party (NP) Presidential candidate Sen. Manny Villar dropped by The Freeman office and the editorial staff had a great time with him. Without much ado, even before our reporters could fire the first question, Sen. Villar whom I perceived to be not so talkative, talked a lot about the mudslinging done against him by the Liberal Party (LP). He told us in no uncertain terms that the tag of his being a “Villarroyo” was a black propaganda that was exposed to the hilt, but he told us that this was far from the truth!

Sen. Villar said that it was Sen. Noynoy Aquino who voted against the opening of the Hello Garci Tapes, while he voted to have it opened. He dared us to look at the NP Senatorial line-up and he says that there are more oppositionists there than in the Liberal Party! The problem is, the LP was the first to start campaigning and immediately claimed to be the opposition party when in reality… it is the NP who is the real opposition party.

On the charge by the LP that Sen. Villar was not really dirt poor, he told The Freeman that their dirty tricks department went to his original house which used to be a squatter colony, but 40 years later, it is no longer the slum area it used to be. When we asked him about the C-5 controversy, he cut us off, asking why we didn’t even make a story regarding the SCTEX controversy that is directly linked to Noynoy Aquino. I can only say that it’s true . . . we didn’t do that story!

When I asked Sen. Villar whether he was happy with our problems with a multi-party system and the Party List, he clearly pointed out that our problem lies upon the fact that while we have a Presidential system, we have a multi-party system that is suited for a Parliamentary form of government. He agrees that we should have a Presidential system with a two party system like the USA or shift to a Parliamentary system with a multi-party system. He also agrees with a Federal system . . . for as long as this is what the Filipino people want. He pointed out clearly that as a CEO of his companies, he can adapt to any system that the people may choose.

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