A President without any strings attached

By Neal Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

I had a long talk with Sen. Chiz Escudero at a Quezon City restaurant last week, during which Chiz revealed why he left his party, the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), which was about to anoint him as its presidential standard-bearer, and other perplexing things most of which were, however, off the record.

Is he still running for President?

Chiz said he will make his decision, and announce it at a press conference, on November 15.

If he does run, it would be as an independent. Basically, what he wanted was a President without any strings attached.

Every President we had, he said, was backed by financiers, business groups and vested interests. So that when he becomes President, he has a lot of baggage weighing him down. The pressures from all sides prevent him from making wise decisions sometimes.

Is it not possible to have a President without any strings attached? he asked.

I answered his question with another question: Is it not possible for a President to forget everything in the past, financiers and all, and think only of what is best for the people?

Gratitude, “utang na loob,” is an ingrained virtue of the Filipino, he replied. Filipinos who are not grateful are described with epithets like “walang utang na loob!” which is a very strong insult indeed. Donors to campaign funds expect the winner to observe this gratitude virtue. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t donate at all. The strings can be so many and so tight as to hobble the person in Malacañang. I don’t want that.

Indeed, the belief that Chiz would be but a surrogate of Danding Conjuangco in Malacañang was already out in the open before Chiz declared his independence.

Chiz does not have his own wealth like Manny Villar or Gibo Teodoro or Erap Estrada. All he has is his party, the NPC. And what is the NPC without Danding Cojuangco’s billions?

“If Chiz wins, it would not be him who would be President,” goes one comment. “Danding would be the de facto President.”

There you have the dilemma. It would be difficult for a presidential candidate not to have a party. But having a party, especially the NPC of Danding, is a double-edged sword. It is good but it is also bad.

So what road should he take? Like Robert Frost, Chiz chose the road less taken. The road where a presidential candidate is not weighed down by extra baggage.

And like Martin Luther King, Chiz has a dream. He said what follows in Filipino but I have translated it into English:

“There are those who say it is madness to leave one’s party when running for President. Nobody has ever done this before. For me there is nothing wrong with dreams and dreaming. That’s free. And doesn’t everything start from dreams? Man dreamed of flying, dreamed of flying to the moon, dreamed of talking to one’s loved one wherever he or she is, etc. All of that [is] possible now.

“Is it wrong to dream to go to the presidency by a different and better way? Is it wrong to do what should be done to our nation without any strings attached?

“Is it wrong to believe that it is in the hands of every Filipino, rich or poor, the power to choose the next leader of the nation because we all have only one vote each anyway?

“In truth, if there is one thing that I want to do, it is to prove that, no matter how difficult life is, we should not stop dreaming for a better nation. If not now, I believe that we will achieve that in the near future. No matter what others say now, we should not stop dreaming.”

Well said. I know now what Chiz’s favorite song is. It is Don Quixote’s song, “The Impossible Dream.”

It it true that Danding refused to bankroll your campaign? I asked.

That’s not true at all, he replied. We did not talk about money matters.

Was your parting difficult?

No, we are still friends. In fact, many party members will still support my presidential run.

As an independent?

Why not? he replied. When Ramos and Miriam finished one-two in the presidential elections that left party candidates way behind, they were basically independent. Erap was basically an independent when he won a landslide victory against the administration party candidate.

Yes, but look what they did to him.

His fault, on hindsight.

What will make you decide to run or not to run?

Difficult to say. Chiz said his dilemma is to run now without a party or wait six years and try again. What do you think?

Better the latter, I replied.

He seemed to agree. In Philippine politics, if you lose once for the presidency, it’s very, very difficult to reverse that. You better win the first time, or else ...

Richard Nixon won after losing to John F. Kennedy, I said.

That’s in the US. But it has never been done here.

There’s always a first time, I said.

Chiz was cheered up by that. In fact, he carries in his cellphone interesting facts about a perennial loser who eventually won. He showed it to me:

“At 31 this man failed in business. At 32 he was defeated in a legislative race. At 34, he failed again in business. At 35, his girl friend died. At 35, he had a nervous breakdown. At 38, he lost another election. At 43, 46,and 48, he lost congressional races. At 55, he lost a senatorial race. At 56, he failed in a bid to become vice president of the United States. At 58, he lost in another senatorial race. But at 60, he was elected President of the US.

“He is Abraham Lincoln.”

Lincoln became not only President, but one of the most famous and best loved of American Presidents. But he did not finish his term. He was shot and killed by an actor, John Wilkes Booth. Neither did Richard Nixon finish his second term. He had to resign because of Watergate.

Anyway, Chiz is only 40 years old. He has many more years ahead of him.