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By Mynardo Macaraig
, Agence France-Presse
Movie stars, divided families, failed coup plotters and friends
turning against each other make the May midterm elections in the
Philippines seem more like a gaudy soap opera than an exercise in
democracy.
The main focus of the campaign is
on the race for 12 seats in the 24-seat Senate where President
Arroyo’s “Team Unity” is going up against the so-called
Genuine Opposition.
But it is hard to tell what side
anyone is on when Mrs. Arroyo’s team includes former senators
Vicente Sotto 3rd and Teresa Oreta who once called for her to quit.
On the GO slate former Arroyo
allies like Manuel Villar, who she herself groomed for the Senate
presidency, figure prominently.
Sotto admitted he joined Team
Unity not on principle but only after he and Oreta were dropped from
the opposition slate.
“There was a new list [of
opposition candidates] and my friends were left out,” he said
recently. “You can’t blame us for feeling bad. We are the
political elders and we were left out in favor of the prodigal
sons.”
For the senators,
name-recognition is crucial—and gives an edge to celebrities such
as film and sports stars.
Team Unity campaign manager Reli
German says they are running on the issue of economic growth but he
admits “people vote on the basis of awareness and popularity. This
is a fact of Philippine political life.”
It is the reason why movie star
Cesar Montano is on Team Unity’s senatorial slate even though he
has no experience in government. But he is not the first and will
not be the last celebrity to be elected to high office in the
Philippines.
The best example is movie star
Joseph Estrada who was elected president in 1998 despite a
reputation for gambling, drinking, sexual promiscuity and his lack
of education.
Just 30 months after being
elected by the biggest majority ever in Philippine politics, with
just under 40 percent of the popular vote, he was ousted in a
popular uprising in 2001 following a massive corruption scandal.
Estrada is now detained and on
trial for graft.
In trying to justify his run for
the Senate, Montano acknowledged his shortcomings, but also
questioned whether brains were really that important in politics.
“We have had so many people who
went into politics who were smart and eloquent but let us ask,
‘what have they done for us?’ Our [Asian] neighbors have moved
one foot [economically]. We have moved one inch,” he said in a
recent television interview.
One of the most colorful
senatorial candidates is veteran coup-plotter and ex-army colonel
Gregorio Honasan who led several bloody coup attempts in the 1980s
and is on trial for involvement in a coup attempt against President
Arroyo in 2003.
Honasan is running as an
independent while in detention and says he is willing to be adopted
by any party—including Team Unity. Not surprisingly, the President
turned him down.
Ex-world boxing champion Manny
Pacquiao, arguably the most popular person in the country, abandoned
plans to run for Congress after polls showed the vast majority of
his fans thought it would be a bad move.
The GO slate has a “star” of
sorts among its candidate line-up: a once-obscure navy lieutenant
named Antonio Trillanes who skyrocketed to fame when he led a
one-day mutiny in July 2003 aimed at bringing down Mrs. Arroyo and
installing a military junta.
Like Honasan, Trillanes campaigns
from his prison cell while being court-martialed for mutiny, using
his network of supporters and the Internet.
Although Trillanes is barred from
granting interviews and his cell has no Internet access, the
military suspects sympathizers in the armed forces are putting
postings on his website for him.
Under the law any literate
Filipino without a criminal record can run for office. Trillanes’
trial has begun but no one knows how long it will take.
One race that has grabbed a lot
of local media attention is the gubernatorial contest in Batangas,
with sibling rivalry and show biz in the mix.
Vilma Santos, one of the biggest
movie stars in the Philippines, is up against Vice-Governor Ricky
Recto who is eyeing the same seat.
The fact that Santos is married
to her rival’s sibling, Sen. Ralph Recto, has complicated matters
and led to some harsh words between the siblings and in-laws, much
to the delight of the media.
Recto can hardly turn down his
wife. After all, it was her show-biz fame that first helped get him
elected to the Senate in 2001.
Another incumbent senator,
Francis Pangilinan, is running for reelection as an independent
without the backing of any political party.
But then again Pangilinan has
something better than a party—his wife, Sharon Cuneta, the beloved
“megastar” of Philippine show business.
Opinion polls show Pangilinan
garnering the most votes on election day due mainly to his wife’s
celebrity status.
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