Early birds

If Vice President Jejomar Binay has been doing it, why cannot the chieftain of the ruling administration party do the same? That is, gear up this early for the May 2013 midterm elections. The latest official announcement from no less than the chieftain of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) is that they have already picked four sure bets in the 12-man Senate ticket under the administration’s banner.

LP chieftain, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, or P-Noy for short, himself announced the four LP bets in the coming senatorial race, namely Customs Commissioner Rozzano “Ruffy” Biazon; former Akbayan representative Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel; Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) director general Joel Villanueva; and Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara.

Binay, on the other hand, has re-electionist Senators Gregorio Honasan and Koko Pimentel, San Juan City Rep. JV Ejercito, Cagayan Rep. Jack Enrile, and businessman Joey de Venecia.

P-Noy bared the initial LP slate in a question-and-answer portion during the general assembly of the Joint Alumni Clubs Wharton Alumni, University of Pennsylvania held at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City last Wednesday evening. The LP chieftain further revealed, to quote him: “There are a lot more applicants than slots. There are at least 24, probably 32 (who) are applying for the 12 slots.”

P-Noy first publicly endorsed Villanueva and Angara as his anointed senatorial candidates during the birthday celebration of Gov. Alfonso Umali Jr. — another very close friend — in Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro last April 30. Malacañang defenders argued it cannot be considered as premature campaigning as the two have yet to file their certificates of candidacy.

Fine. Last week, P-Noy flew to Negros to preside over the en masse oath taking of the latest turncoats, mostly local leaders in the province, as new LP members.

Obviously, there is no stopping P-Noy from joining the political bandwagons in this early campaign for his administration candidates in the 2013 polls. In fact, P-Noy has started going around the country in political sorties, along with Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Mar Roxas II, in their capacity as LP national chairman and president, respectively.

The filing of the certificates of candidacy, as scheduled by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), would be on Oct. 1 to 5 yet. But this early, no less than the President and Vice President, who head their respective political parties, are on election mode already.

We could not begrudge P-Noy for preparing his LP this early for the Senate race. In the 2010 elections, only three in the 12-man LP Senate ticket won, namely re-electionist Senator Franklin Drilon, come-backing Senator Ralph Recto, and ex-Congressman Teofisto Guingona III. After a feud with the Roxas bloc of the LP during the campaign, come-backing Senator Sergio Osmeña III ran and won as an “independent” in the same elections even as the LP adopted him in its 12-man LP Senate ticket.

At a glance, one-fourth of the LP Senate slate is already filled. All four are P-Noy’s former colleagues at the House of Representatives when he was still a congressman from Tarlac. Biazon represented Muntinlupa, Baraquel was with party-list Akbayan, Villanueva was from the Citizens Battle against Corruption (CIBAC), and Angara was congressman of Aurora.

Of the four, Biazon and Hontiveros-Baraquel were both defeated senatorial candidates of LP in the 2010 elections. Other also-rans of the LP Senate ticket like Customs deputy commissioner retired Gen. Danilo Lim and Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) general manager Neric Acosta were mentioned in the past as among possible candidates in next year’s elections.

     Notably, most of them are incumbent government officials (Biazon, Villanueva, Lim and Acosta) in the Aquino administration. In that same forum in Makati, P-Noy declined to name the other candidates, saying it was still premature to identify these senatorial wannabes who have applied but may not have passed their party’s approval.

Of the four, only Biazon is an original LP member. Akbayan, CIBAC, and Angara’s Laban ng Demo-kratikong Pilipino that his father, Sen. Edgardo Angara, heads, allied with the ruling administration coalition in the 15th Congress. The younger Angara is one of the official spokesmen of the House prosecution panel in the Corona impeachment trial while his father is one of the Senator-judges.

Curiously, while the young Angara got already his “reward,” his fellow official spokesman of the House prosecution panel, Quezon Congressman Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada III, is not mentioned among P-Noy’s first batch of “senatoriables.” Tañada is also the LP official spokesman. In his third and last term as congressman, Tañada announced yesterday his senatorial bid in next year’s elections.

Anyway, P-Noy appointed earlier this year former Sen. Wigberto Tanada, father of the Quezon congressman, as chairman of the sequestered Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) Mills Group. That is perhaps the “reward” he gets though through his father.

Incidentally, among the LP also-rans, only Baraquel remained “unemployed” under the Aquino administration. Baraquel though has kept herself actively involved in pro-Aquino rallies. She led Akbayan in demonizing in rallies erstwhile Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez who subsequently resigned rather than go through an impeachment trial at the Senate.

Baraquel is again leading Akbayan among the petitioners in the alleged dollar accounts of Chief Justice Renato Corona who is currently undergoing impeachment trial at the Senate. She was summoned as a “hostile” witness at the impeachment trial the other day. The feisty Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago even passed off the opportunity to grill Baraquel, citing as reason that she might be a Senate colleague by next year.

Now that she landed in the first batch of P-Noy’s senatorial bets for the LP, this could be regarded as, finally, a “reward” for Baraquel. 

 The early bird, as they say, catches the worm. And P-Noy is the biggest bird of them all.