Most political analysts and senior political leaders now agree that Senator Grace Poe is running for president with Senator Chiz Escudero as her vice presidential running mate as independents.
Many questions are now being asked in connection with her presidential candidacy. They are:
1. Will she receive a favorable decision by the Supreme Court (SC) on the question of her compliance with the ten-year residency requirement for a presidential candidacy?
2. Will the Poe-Escudero team up be adopted by the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) headed by presidential uncle Eduardo M. Cojuangco?
3. Will the Nacionalista Party (NP) adopt the Poe-Escudero ticket in exchange for 4 to 6 senatorial slots?
4. How many Liberal Party (LP) lawmakers will switch to Poe? Will there be a split in the LP?
5. Will a Bongbong Marcos-Rudy Duterte team up materialize?
6. Will President Noynoy Aquino shift his support to Grace Poe in the later stages of the campaign if it is clear that Roxas cannot win?
7. Will President Aquino allow the big campaign donors to contribute to Poe’s campaign?
8. Who will President Joseph “Erap” Estrada support, Vice President Jejomar Binay or Senator Poe?
9. Will Senator Serge Osmeña agree to be Grace Poe's campaign manager?
10. Who will former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Lakas-NUCD party support?
11. Will the Poe campaign be able to organize a national campaign organization in six months?
NP denies talks with NPC
Nacionalista Senator Cynthia Villar, wife of NP president former Senator Manny Villar, issued a formal statement denying NPC Congressman Georgidi Aggabao’s claim that NPC and NP are holding talks on a possible coalition to support Senator Grace Poe and Senator Chiz Escudero in their candidacies for president and vice president, respectively, in 2016.
Senator Villar said that her husband was surprised by the Aggabao statement and denied any talks were ongoing between the two political parties.
Aggabao is also denying the story, saying he may have been misquoted when he said that 80 percent of party membership support a Poe-Escudero ticket.
Senator Villar clarified that 3 NP Senators – Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Alan Peter Cayetano, and Antonio Trillanes IV – are prospective candidates and have to be considered first before outsiders.
Senate, House most corrupt
The Veritas Truth Survey (VTS) revealed that the Senate and the House are the most corrupt government institutions.
The Senate got a 49 percent most corrupt rating while the House received a 48 percent. With a 3 percent margin of error, the Senate and House ratings are considered a majority.
In the same Veritas survey, only 13 percent believe President Noynoy Aquino has succeeded in his drive against corruption.
Bishop Teodoro Bacani Jr. said: “It is a frustrating fact that from the President himself, corruption is still rampant until now. We had high expectations that Aquino and his promises would win out because we were already fed up with the previous administration, but he failed to curb corruption.”
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said the President does not seem to take his anti-corruption promises seriously as nobody within the administration clique, despite being tagged in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) scams, has not been officially charged at all.
Investigations by the Senate, the Commission on Audit (COA), and the Ombudsman revealed corruption in the Department of Agriculture (DA), the National Food Authority (NFA), the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the Bureau of Customs (BOC), the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), and the Light Rail Transit (LRT).
So how can Malacañang and its allies claim that they are incorruptible and treading the straight path when this Church-based survey showed that the public perceives Aquino administration as corrupt and untrustworthy?
The Senate, House and the Cabinet are predominantly composed by Malacañang allies and members of the ruling Liberal Party (LP).
SONA failures
Monday, July 27, is President Aquino’s last State of the Nation Address (SONA). It is expected that he will report all the achievements of the administration.
But he will not certainly talk about the clear failures of his administration, namely:
1. failure to curb corruption;
2. failure to reduce poverty;
3. failure to solve the power crisis;
4. failure to achieve rice self-sufficiency;
5. failure to curb the drug problem;
6. failure to reduce the high crime rate, especially kidnappings in Mindanao;
7. failure to improve MRT-3 service;
8. failure to solve the Metro Manila traffic crisis;
9. failure to curb oil, rice, sugar and vegetable smuggling;
10. failure to create 10 million new jobs.
A few days before his SONA, some progressive professors of the University of the Philippines (UP) and sectoral groups gave President Aquino a failing grade.
Chairperson of the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND), Prof. Gerardo Lanuza, said Aquino, in his entire presidency, has only been a puppet that exploited and oppressed the masses in a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society. “His kabarilan, kaklase, kaibigan and kainuman have partaken of this government,” Lanuza added.
The group will join the big rally along Commonwealth on Monday, saying they cannot allow their children to inherit a society “that has been ravaged by the corrupt and anti-people policies of the Aquino administration.”