This is my fourth post on the encounter Mar Roxas, the senator and presumptive presidential standard bearer of the Liberal Party had with Filipino bloggers, this writer among them.
But no, I am not yet ready to endorse him as the Pinoy Barack Obama.
But this much I am sure of: With the next presidential elections still some 19 months away, Mar has, for all intents and purposes thrown his hat into the ring just as Senate President Manny Villar and Vice President Noli De Castro have, not to mention the presumptuous and thoroughly arrogant Bayani Fernando (will do a separate piece on this gentleman some time soon).
All that Mar has not done yet is file his certificate of candidacy.
Bur by the way he talks and walks, he is running for president. Make no mistake about it.
His pedigree, his record as a politician (no longer ‘reluctant’ after taking on the Araneta/Roxas mantle due to the sudden death years back of his brother Dinggoy), his academic and intellectual maturity, and his age, all brand Mr. Palengke as presidential.
Bur Mar and his nascent political/media team have their work cut out for them.
The latest Pulse Asia Survey, if this writer is not mistaken, showed Mar, and Mr. Villar both with ‘challenging’ ratings.
Mar and his team know this and so they are going boldly into the new media, blogging and the class-and-border erasing Internet to get their message out and lock in the votes of overseas Filipinos and the youth.
This is why all at the same time Mar and his team have launched his blog and an innovative virtual protest rally site.
This ‘virtual flesh-pressing is timely but also fraught with danger, given that political operators will not more sharply have mar in their cross-hairs.
Mar appears to be declaring that this time around he is ready for the political arrows that will come his way.
A sudden change of mind will likely write finis to his political ambitions, and vision to make a difference, to “offer change that Filipinos can believe in.”
Tangentially it is also public knowledge that Mar is romantically involved with mega-popular broadcast journalist(and stunningly beauteous Korina Sanchez, a colleague of this writer in her early days and whom I deeply admire.
Will Mar tie the knot soon and be ready to have Korina as ‘indicative First Lady’ to a ‘President Mar’?
There is also the matter that Mar, to his credit, laid bare when he ran for senator: the son he sired to a former beauty queen.
This writer is mentioning these items knowing that Mar will, and should, be ready to face them squarely later if not sooner.
I am confident he is ready.
Popularity: 1% [?]
I think Roxas chances of winning will depend on how the Liberal Party is able to (re-)define itself. It cannot pretend to be maka-Masa a-la Erap or FPJ(imho that ‘Mr. Palengke’ comes off as fake) in that the party itself has a Patrician soul. What the LP needs to decide within itself is whether it will pay lip-service to the masses while trying to hide its elitist core, or will it be a genuine agent of change in its leading the Oligarchs (and the Middle Class) to finally emancipate the masses. My guess is that if the masses sense the latter, then this will be seen as a sign of sincerity and his party will have a fighting chance.
Ding, as a faithful skeptic, I am very cautious in endorsing anyone to lead our nation. I am hopeful, however, that Mar has given us all a chance be at the table and participate in the discussion that I am hopeful he will also give to those who don’t have the capacity to avail of the time to scrutinize candidates and public officials. “The Masa” of course will have to take the time, but knowing that a third of the population is in poverty, most Filipinos just don’t have the time to properly scrutinize each and every candidate, this is where we can help in bringing to light these discussions, not only online, but hopefully to our respective inner circles and communities.
I’m thankful for his invitations, but I also yearn for more. And in the future, I hope town hall meetings will be a normal aspect of our democracy and geared towards informing the citizenry. As Bencard has noted, and I repeat here, we have yet to reach the tip of what an informed citizenry should be. We can help, through such initiatives, as FV, in helping create such a citizenry.
Will he be the man that can lead and inspire our nation, something that is obviously lacking in this administration? We cannot make that assertion as of yet. It’s a good start though.
Nick,
Am with you on this and adding to my skepticism about our politicians is my concern over the heavily eroded integrity of our very electoral process.
2004 saw massive cheating at work more palpably in the Philippines. The massive scale of the fraud that took place is only now being confirmed in the exposes just last week in Ellen Tordesillas’ two-part report in the Vera Files.
The coming ARMM polls, assuming they will push through, may not even be enough of a litmus test to reassure us about the COMELEC rebuilding its badly tattered image.
i do not know what else to add to what you’ve said cvj, nick, ding. this surely is a very interesting time we live in.
ding, i just can’t figure out why you think bayani fernando is presumptuous and arrogant. is it because he displays an uncompromising stance in doing what he is supposed to do? i think we had enough of populist leaders who will not do anything unless he is certain he can defend it “in plaza miranda”, regardless of the urgency and need for a decisive action. i don’t mean to blow the trumpet for the man this early but i, for one, believes that fernando would make an effective, but not too popular) president. we always say that our leaders must have “political will” – a kind of courage or “audacity” to do the right thing no matter the adverse political consequence that it may bring to the leader.
unless we conquer our age-old habit of voting for “mabait”, “maawain”, “matulungin”, “mapagbigay”, “madaling kausapin”, “maka-mahirap”, “mapakumbaba”, “reliyoso”, etc., etc., we will never find the true leader we need to solve our country’s problems.