Dreaming the impossible dream

WHEN I interviewed Francis Joseph Escudero for a feature story on his first year as a congressman in 1998, he already had his sights set on the presidency. He was 28 years old. It was a dream that he did not keep to himself. Libre naman ang mangarap, he would say.

That time, he was looking at 2010 as the right time for him to go for it. He had turned 40 a few months before the election so he was eligible. He prepared for it. He kept himself visible in the media, had anchored television and radio programs on RPN9, DAZR and DZMM one time or the other, and wrote legal advice columns for Abante and Abante Tonite.