I guess, only the luminous council of Barrio Siete and their “brilliant” attorney would think otherwise; As regards Magdalo’s endorsement… rest claims by LP adherents that Villar is the President’s secret candidate. No right-thinking person would believe that Sonny Trillanes and Ariel Querubin and their rouge posse would support a Malacañang ally.

Villaroyo? I don't think so...

If I were the Liberal Party (LP), I would stop bellyaching about the advertising expense of Sen. Manny Villar, the standard-bearer of the Nacionalista Party (NP) during the campaign period. After all, it is their party president, Sen. Mar Roxas, the running mate of Sen. Noynoy Aquino, who started it all.

At the start of the 2004 senatorial campaign, Mar was far off the Top 12. Sure, the oppositionists were sore at him them for dumping Erap in 2001 and he was not expected to get much of their votes.

However, he was a former trade secretary and he was running under the majority coalition led by President Gloria Arroyo, so his low rating initially was a big letdown. His solution to this problem? Advertising, lots of it! By saturating television and radio with his “Mr. Palengke” advertisements, he clawed his way up until he eventually became Number 1.

Mar’s ad spending was unprecedented in 2004. There were howls of protest that the way he was spending for the campaign, only the very rich could soon afford to run for a national office. A petition for his disqualification for overspending was filed before the Commission on Election. (The Fair Election Practices Act allows a national candidate to buy a maximum of 120 minutes for TV ads.) Mar, however, got off the hook. He contended, and the Comelec agreed, that the 120 minutes should be computed on a per-station basis.

The law did not mention “per station” in limiting the air time allowed but, thanks to Mar, it has been interpreted to mean just that—per station. This interpretation opened the floodgates for political advertising on TV and radio. Imagine the great reduction in election spending if each candidate could buy only a total of 120 minutes in all stations! But then, if these were followed, Mar would have been disqualified.

Again, if I were the Liberal Party, I would stop pointing an accusing finger at Manny Villar for starting his advertising even before the onset of the election campaign. The LP should not forget that Mar, fully supported by the moneyed Aranetas and Roxases, was waging an advertising campaign when he was still the presumptive presidential candidate of the party.

He was slugging it out with Manny Villar ad per ad, station per station.

How soon can the people forget the ads where Mar became no longer Mr. Palengke but Boy Padyak?

And the many ads he had on the Cheaper Medicine Law?

All of these came even before the election campaign because he was then acknowledged as the sure bet of the LP for president in 2010.

Mar’s ads, as well as the press releases that were really voluminous, tapered off after he gave way to Sen. Noynoy Aquino as LP presidential candidate. I am sure that had he remained the LP candidate for president, he would have given Manny Villar a run for his money in TV advertising. He would have needed TV ads because he was then rating low in pre-election surveys.

Now, this is not to denigrate Mar’s qualifications for public office. As I said before, and I will still say it now, he grew in stature before my very eyes—and before thousands of others, I am sure—in giving up the quest for the position that he had been craving for. I note that he is now doing much better as vice presidential candidate than as presidential aspirant.

This said, the LP should be forewarned against raising bogus election issues, like campaign spending, that could boomerang on it.

The Villar Campaign

This week is a most propitious one for Manny Villar. He was named the most trusted presidential candidate in the non-commissioned survey conducted by Pulse Asia and was endorsed by the Magdalo group headed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th.

He had a “big trust” rating of 70 percent while his main rival, Noynoy Aquino, had 64 percent. They were the only presidential candidate with majority trust ratings in the survey conducted from January 22 to 26. Compared to the Pulse Asia trust survey conducted last December, Villar’s rating went up by 1 percent, while that of Aquino went down by 8 percent.

Pulse Asia noted that the trust rating survey was conducted while the newspapers headlined the report of the Senate Committee of the Whole seeking the censure of Villar over the C-5 road extension project.

As regards Magdalo’s endorsement, this goes beyond numbers as the group has only 55,000 members—it cements Villar’s status as a genuine oppositionist and puts to rest claims by LP adherents that he is the President’s secret candidate. No right-thinking person would believe that Trillanes and his group would support a Malacañang ally. BY EFREN L. DANAO