Our next-gen pols?

"Coco and Lloydie, anyone?"

 

 

Coco Martin, a.k.a. Cardo Dalisay, visits “Ang Pinuno” Sen. Lito Lapid, in the Senate, mismo!  That was the biggest news the other day, as far as Taiwan OFW’s huddled yesterday at Won-Won or our version of “Little Manila” in Taipei’s Zhongshan District.

Why his “pinuno”?  Why not Ping Lacson or Bato de la Rosa, who were both his “kabaro” having been Chief PNP before becoming senators?  If it was to gain tips on how best to perform in the re-launch of Ang Probinsyano, these two would have been better resource persons.

But no, a little birdie close to the superhero of telenovelas and nemesis of Solgen Joe Calida told me that Martin (Nacianceno in real life), had already discussed his non-cinematic future, that is, politics, with his “pinuno” at the time his socmed defense of his “kapamilya” network was raging.

You see, friends were egging him to make a run for a coveted mayoralty post come 2022.  But conferring with his “pinuno,” he was advised to seek a Senate seat instead.

 “Mas madali ang trabaho ng senador,” tukayo Lito reportedly told Coco.

So was Coco’s visit to the Senate premises a case of surveying the lay of the land after the fourth Sunday of July 2022?

* * *

One problem moist-eyed presidential wannabes will soon encounter is filling up their 12-man senatorial slate.  A major problem is Region 7, where there seems to be little interest for any local politician to get to the select club of the “august.”

Friends are goading the feisty Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon to go for it, since she is due to retire from her post come February 2022.  Commissioner Guanzon, after all, comes with hefty credentials: a brilliant lawyer, a former mayor of Cadiz upon the Cebuano-speaking Negros Occidental who fought the fearsome Mayor Gustilo of martial law notoriety (remember the Escalante massacre!) and a pistol sharpshooter to boot.

She was former Senadora Miriam Defensor Santiago’s chief of staff during the equally feisty senator’s first years in the Senate, after losing narrowly to FVR in the 1992 presidential elections.  And she has acquitted herself as an activist elections commissioner, at one time the lone female member of the seven-man commission but the one with the real balls, or so say some Palacio del Gobernador upon Intramuros residents say.

She bawled out a pseudo-youth party list representative and sent him packing out of the HoR for misrepresenting the youth.  At one time, she stood for the validity of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s last-minute substitution as candidate for president in 2016, over and above the objections of her Chairman, Andy Bautista, who is now somewhere in the US of A licking his wounds after a hugely controversial marital spat laced with alleged larceny.

Bing Guanzon speaks both Ilonggo and Cebuano dialects flawlessly, apart from Tagalog and impeccable English.

But then again, some Cebuano friends are saying another celluloid superstar, John Lloyd Cruz is thinking of a Senate run. He has a love-child with Cebuana Ellen Adarna after all, and can yet register as a Cebu resident one year before the elections.

Are Coco and Loydie our next-gen politicos? Oh well.

* * *

But then again, come 2022, we may have Senator Manny Pacquiao gunning for the presidency no less.  Make that “will” instead of “may,” or so declared Bob Arum, the Pacman’s boxing promoter.

Wow!  An announcement to run for the Philippine presidency from the US of A, mismo!

Sounds like Marcos declaring a “snap” election from Washington DC in November of 1985.  This time, from LA or is it Las Vegas where Bob Arum cools his heels?

A friend sent me a text message upon getting the Bob Arum declaration. “Imbitado ka ba sa inauguration?” he asked.  My response:  “Oh my God!”

* * *

Once more, Taiwan shows how it can help, and how it is helping.  Last April 15, they sent a planeload of face masks to help alleviate our shortage of the COVID-preventive instrument.  These were handed out to MECO Vice-Chairman Gilbert Lauengco by TECO resident representative Michael Pei-yung Hsu at the NAIA cargo terminal, with a bashful DOH undersecretary refusing to be photographed because her Secretary Duque might protest “kuno.”

Last Thursday, the Taiwanese government, through TECO, again donated 500,000 surgical masks, 50,000 N95 masks, 20,000 isolation suits and 5,000 protective gowns to the Philippines.  These government donations are separate from previous donations, in cash and in kind, by private Taiwanese investors in our country, such as the Taiwan Association of the Philippines.

Representing MECO in the turn-over of the donation were our directors, Cesar M. Drilon and Raymond Robert Burgos, as I am here in Taiwan.  Incidentally, we have had to cancel the usual diplomatic reception for Philippine Independence Day this year.  Also cancelled was the Araw ng OFW held each year on the Sunday preceding our national day, where fun games would violate social distancing rules.