MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) The tandem of Senators Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and Manuel “Mar Roxas II for the 2010 presidential race is a done deal.
The two men will make the formal announcement at a press conference Monday, former Representatives Florencio “Butch” Abad and Nereus Acosta, both stalwarts of the Liberal Party (LP), said yesterday.
Abad and Acosta accompanied Aquino to the SMX convention center in Pasay City, where he spoke before an estimated 10,000 educators attending the Bato Balani Foundation’s “Tribute to Teachers.” The annual event is the largest gathering of educators in the country.
Aquino, who announced on September 9 that he was heeding the clamor to run for the presidency, himself confirmed that Roxas had accepted his invitation to be his running mate in the 2010 polls.
Asked if it was a done deal, Aquino said: “Yes. [The announcement will be made on] Monday morning.”
Abad, the LP national campaign manager for 2010, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an ambush interview that an advisory would be issued Sunday on the press conference to be held at Club Filipino in San Juan.
“That’s it. That’s the tandem,” Abad said.
Club Filipino is where Aquino’s mother, the late Corazon Aquino, was sworn in as President at the culmination of the February 1986 People Power revolt that ousted the strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
Historic day
In an interview with dwIZ later in the day, Roxas, the LP president, said his supporters should wait for a major announcement tomorrow.
He said September 21 was a “historic day” – the Eid’l Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the 37th anniversary of the imposition of martial law.
“It’s a thanksgiving [day] and the anniversary of the period ushering the dark days of martial law in our country. So this day is a historic day, a very good day,” Roxas said.
Referring to the electoral battle in May 2010, he said: “This fight is bigger than the Liberal Party … so everyone should take part. This is a battle involving the whole nation.”
Roxas, a scion of the Araneta-Roxas clan who pulled out of the presidential race in favor of Aquino on September 1, said there were many “who continuously desire to perpetuate the present rotten [system] because they are benefiting from it.”
“But we want change,” he declared.
Asked if he would also bankroll Aquino’s candidacy, Roxas said without elaborating: “I have all-out support for Noynoy.”
Restoring trust
Abad, the education secretary during Corazon Aquino’s presidency, said that apart from the overarching goal of achieving structural and ideological change in both government and society, the Aquino-Roxas tandem would bring back public trust in the national leadership.
“[Restoring trust] will be the focus because it all starts with a government that you can trust,” he said.
Abad said that for the past eight years, the Filipino people had lost faith in their political leaders.
“I think this has to be restored,” he said. “We can discuss so many great platforms, but if the national leadership is not trusted by the people, you can only do so much.”
Asked if the LP had the logistics to run a nationwide campaign, Abad said a “people’s campaign” was the answer.
“What is amazing in this campaign is that the people claim it as their campaign, so that ... [it] is really a citizens’ initiative, a citizens’ action,” he said. “A lot of the traditional logistical requirements ... will be more than made up for by the volunteerism that is unprecedentedly being shown in this campaign.”
People’s campaign
Abad said the LP had no estimate on the funds needed to run an Aquino-Roxas ticket complete with a senatorial slate.
“It’s hard to say. For example, the funds are usually devoted to vote protection,” he said, adding that some 200,000 polling precincts nationwide were to be staffed by three poll watchers each.
“But with a very strong public interest in their candidacies, a lot of [the funds required] can be [offset] by volunteer work. If the campaign retains its character as the people’s campaign, you can make a lot of savings,” he said.
Abad said he believed this was enough to surmount the well-oiled machinery of the administration coalition or the purported billion-peso campaign fund of Senator Manuel Villar Jr., another presidential aspirant.
“If we wage this fight in the arena of machine or money politics, we will not win,” Abad said. “But if we wage it as a response to the hunger for decency, integrity, transparency and accountability in public service and governance, I think we have no opponent in that arena.”
Just a month after his mother’s death on August 1, Aquino topped the Social Weather Stations survey on presidential preference in the vote-rich National Capital Region, Central Luzon and Calabarzon, and Pangasinan province.
The area comprises 40 percent of the nationwide vote, Abad said.
Acosta said this was due to “the hunger the people realized after Noynoy’s mother died.”
Noynoy-Estrada talks
On Friday in Baguio City, Roxas said the planned talks between Aquino and deposed President Joseph Estrada would explore the unification of the opposition but would exclude “trapos” (traditional politicians).
He said the 2010 elections “will no longer be a fight between the administration and the opposition” – and, therefore, trapos will play no major role in a coalition that proposes to offer real institutional reforms.”
Roxas was in the summer capital to address the joint annual convention of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Association of Certified Public Accountants in Commerce and Industry at the Baguio Country Club.
He said the planned talks would be “party-to-party” but would be led by the standard-bearers of the LP and the United Opposition.
“As party president, I will support what Noynoy decides,” Roxas said.
But he refused to talk about Aquino’s offer for him to be the latter’s running mate, saying the announcement would be made “after several nights’ sleep.”
‘Tingi’ approach
In his talk before the convention participants, Roxas shed more light on the possible Noynoy-Mar campaign platform.
He said he and Aquino had been frustrated by President Macapagal-Arroyo’s “tingi” (fragmented) approach to development.
“Some governments will do one thing [measuring] 10 inches [of a development program]. Some governments will do 10 different things [each measuring] 10 inches. Gloria will do 20 different things [measuring only half an inch]. She does it for political gains, you see,” he said, adding:
“Noynoy and I agreed: Let’s do just three things that [each measures] 30 inches … Today, what we have are concrete roads built far from irrigation dams and trading areas, so the rice we produce gets wet first [before it is traded].”
Lowest economic growth
Roxas said that from the second richest Asian country, the Philippines had recorded the lowest economic growth among the six original members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
“Three generations after [World War II], and a generation after the 1986 People Power revolt, where we were supposed to have taken part in a theoretical reboot, here we are, mired, stuck, falling behind our neighbors,” he said.
He said accountants knew that the people must “accept the rot” to make changes, and this included acknowledging that the country was spending P70 billion annually to import 2 million tons of rice when the allocation could best serve building better farms.
He added that the economy was in trouble because only 18 of the 88 children enrolled in first grade completed college.
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