“She is not like Poe and Moreno.”
Fame has a way of making opportunists of the newest of the new politicians.
Take the case of Senator Grace Poe Llamanzares, the adopted daughter of the late local film star Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ).
FPJ ran for president in May 2004, but lost to re-electionist President Gloria Arroyo. Many voters believe that the election was rigged. Arroyo herself appeared on nationwide television to publicly admit and apologize for influencing an election commissioner during the campaign.
In December 2004, FPJ died of a stroke, probably out of frustration. His death sealed his status as a Philippine icon.
Before FPJ’s presidential run and in the two years following his demise, Grace Poe was virtually unheard of. She had resided abroad for some time, and had become a naturalized American citizen.
Grace Poe entered the political scene in October 2010, when the newly elected President Noynoy Aquino appointed her the chief of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.
In 2013, Grace Poe tried her luck and ran for senator, using campaign propaganda highlighting her being the daughter of FPJ. Sympathy votes from the electorate who believed that her dad FPJ was cheated in the 2004 polls landed her in first place. I remember voting for her out of sympathy for her late father.
Alas! Landing first place in the senatorial election got to Grace Poe’s head. The political opportunist in her thought that if she could top the Senate race, then the presidency in 2016 should be a cinch — or so she thought.
Grace Poe’s presidential run, however, was doomed from the start.
Questions about her citizenship and her utter lack of practical political experience hounded her no end. Her flimsy campaign claim that the presidency is simply about being the mother of the nation, and her tacit admission about not knowing how to effectively deal with Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea, underscored her unsuitability for the presidency. She landed in third place, having lost to President Rodrigo Duterte.
In 2019, Grace Poe sought re-election to the Senate and expected a repeat of her first place victory in 2013. Poe landed in second place, next to first placer and re-electionist Senator Cynthia Villar, who obtained 3 million more votes than Poe did.
Midway in 2021, Grace Poe was obviously considering another run for the presidency, as seen in her many television commercials extolling her as a senator and as FPJ’s daughter. By August 2021, her commercials stopped running, which meant that her presidential ambition was not getting any public acceptance.
Poe’s term in the Senate ends in 2025, and from all indications, her political roadmap will be leading nowhere after that.
Another obvious political opportunist is Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso.
Moreno was Manila’s vice mayor from 2007 to 2016, and lost in his senatorial run in 2016. In 2019, and to everyone’s surprise, Moreno defeated the then re-electionist Manila mayor, ex-President Joseph Estrada.
One of the first projects of Moreno as the new mayor was to get rid of the sidewalk vendors along Recto Avenue in Divisoria. That highly publicized undertaking created a euphoria, which Moreno’s minions exploited to promote their boss, resulting in Moreno’s opportunistic ambition to become president in 2022.
By the summer of 2021, Moreno saturated the major television programs with his endless commercials praising him and his perceived achievements as Manila mayor, and suggesting in the process that he should be president.
Like Grace Poe before him, the political opportunist in Moreno is currently capitalizing on what he believes is his wide popularity. Unlike Poe, however, Moreno does not have a national constituency to his credit. Therefore, unless Moreno can duplicate President Duterte’s massive popular appeal in 2016, Moreno is in for a steep, uphill battle.
There are many issues now being raised against Moreno, including the extent of his real estate acquisitions, alleged ghost employees at city hall, and his suspected close ties to oligarchs.
Moreno has yet to explain who is paying for his costly television commercials, considering that his salary as city mayor is not enough to shoulder those expenses.
Critics also score Moreno for declaring his candidacy for president, while astutely remaining in office as city mayor. They suspect Moreno will use his post as city helmsman to finance his campaign expenses.
In sharp contrast to Poe and Moreno, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte has not exploited her immense popularity as a catapult to the presidency. Right now, Sara is reluctant to run for national office, and if she were to have her way, she will turn down the clamor of the people for her to run for president.
Unlike Poe and Moreno, Sara Duterte is not a political opportunist. For many, that is a good-enough reason why Sara should run for president, and win.