Senate bet’s fear: Winning as VP

House Minority Leader Carlos Padilla, lone candidate for senator of opposition presidential hopeful Sen. Panfilo Lacson, has one big problem: he might be elected vice president.

In talks with The STAR yesterday, Padilla said not a few voters in the areas he and his standard-bearer have so far visited in their campaign sorties have mistaken him for Lacson’s running mate.

"Dadalawa lang kami ni Ping sa ticket kaya inaakala nilang ako ang bise niya (There are only two of us in the ticket so they think I am his vice presidential candidate). We always have to tell them that I am his lone candidate for senator," Padilla said.

Reached for comment, Lacson acknowledged that a perception or miscommunication problem has affected their initial campaign sorties.

He said in his home province of Cavite, where they launched their campaign on Feb. 10, the two of them and leaders of the province led by Gov. Ireneo "Ayong" Maliksi appealed to voters to write the name of Padilla after voting for Lacson.

"Our attention was later called to the fact that the space on the ballot immediately below the slot for president is reserved for the voter’s choice of a vice president. So we are now correcting our error," Lacson said.

He and Padilla are now telling their supporters to skip the space for vice president and write only the name Carlos Padilla or Padilla on the first of the 12 slots for senators.

"Mabuti na’ang malinaw, because people might elect me for vice president and I might actually win but my votes will be invalidated," said the House leader in jest.

Padilla, whose third and last term as Nueva Vizcaya congressman ends in June this year, has no regrets in deciding to stick it out with Lacson, who was Philippine National Police chief for 14 months during the short-lived Estrada administration.

Weeks before the campaign started, the leader of the opposition bloc in the House of Representative had the choice of going with the ticket of the other opposition presidential hopeful, movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., who had initially chosen him as a common candidate.

But Poe’s principal political backers, Senators Edgardo Angara and Vicente Sotto III, forced Padilla to choose either Poe or Lacson.

Angara actually, wanted to remove Padilla in the Poe ticket because he was one of several congressmen belonging to the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino who went against the senator’s wishes and supported Lacson. Angara heads the LDP.

"I did not waver in my support for Ping. Besides, I could not accept what Edong was doing to us and our party," said Padilla, referring to his party boss.

He said he is happy that he made the right decision to stick it out with Lacson especially now that he is getting public attention "because were are only two in the ticket."

"In our campaign sorties, attention is focused on my standard-bearer. But after him, the limelight naturally shifts to me, his only candidate for senator," Padilla said.

"Sa kabila, mahirap mapansin doon, kasi maraming superstar (On the other side, it’s difficult to be noticed because there are so many superstars)," Padilla said, referring to Poe’s camp. –Jess Diaz