Playing with Fire
Rebirth of the Liberal Party
By Gonzalo Duque
WE missed you, dear readers, last week. The reason we intentionally did not write our column was the death of our beloved former President, Tita Cory Aquino. We mourned her passing, just like most of you.
It was President Cory who appointed us as acting vice governor of the province in the first days of the post Marcos era, along with former acting governor Rafael Colet.
Those were days of great expectations, you know. Tita then buried martial law as the prestigious Time magazine put it.
Even before she was finally interred beside her beloved Ninoy, a large segment of the population was planning to seize the opportunity to cash in on the thousands of mourners who braved the inclement weather to join the entourage of Tita Cory’s funeral.
Many were — still are — thinking and devising plans to groom her son, Senator Noynoy (mama’s boy), to run for President, just like what they did to Tita Cory when Ninoy was killed on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport.
In fact, the Noynoy-for-President movement is now a favorite stuff in every coffee shop. That’s good. But the national hero’s namesake Benigno III is behaving “coy” — parang namamalikmata, parang confused, ika nga, parang wala siyang presidential plans. Wala ata sa utak niya ang magiging pangulo ng Pinas.
Whether he has presidential plans or not, the conjectures should worry Senator Mar Roxas because both of them are stellar Liberals. There is logic in the view that Noynoy becoming presidential bet will catch fire sooner or later. We all know that people power still has strong appeal to our people especially that they are tired with a dismal group of presidential wannabes. The emerging rivalry between the two — although they will deny it in the meantime— could devastate the party unless either would submit to a higher challenge.
During the times of their fathers — the late Senators Gerry Roxas and Ninoy Aquino, president and sec-gen of the Liberal Party— were also the foremost personalities in the party. We vividly remember when the LP miting de avance at Plaza Miranda was bombed, Ninoy was at our residence at Loyola Heights chatting with Papang on solving party problems such as the fielding of Vice Gov. Vic Millora as LP’s candidate for governor in Pangasinan against then re-electionist Gov. Aguedo F. Agbayani.
In the national scene, the hottest topic then was who would LP field to run for president against Marcos — Gerry Roxas or Ninoy Aquino? Papang was caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, so to speak. Papang who was close to both even sought our kiddie opinion, and we both agreed that Ninoy was more popular and charismatic.
So, you see, history has a way of repeating itself. These days, political events are gravitating to a possible clash between Mar and Noynoy in the party.
It’s still premature to tell who will finally gain the upper hand although Mar has been ahead in points being party president and the early bird. The future has a lot of surprises to unravel yet. As of this writing, the presidential gallop shows Erap as staging a sprint to the top edging out the rest. But, it’s true, as the old folks say, we can’t really tell because there is a saying, “isinusubo na ang pagkain, nalalaglag pa rin.”
One thing is sure. The Liberal Party is back on the road to political supremacy. It was once called the party of presidents having sired presidential timbers the likes of Elpidio Quirino,Ramon Magsaysay before he defected to the NP, Diosdado Macapagal, Ferdinand Marcos before he was imported by the NP to fight Macapagal, and lately, Cory Aquino under a new name, Lakas ng Bayan or LABAN.
These developments in the Liberal Party are worth watching. It really could produce the next president of the Philippines.
Man kuros de bukot kayo la, Manny Villar and Erap.
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