CANDABA, Pampanga—The father of Sen. Loren Legarda has hit it well with the crowd that attended the administration-backed Team PNoy in Pampanga, amusing them in ways the relatives of other senatorial candidates could not.
On Friday, Antonio Legarda danced on stage to the beat of the senator’s campaign jingle at Genuine Park here. Amiable and wisecracking, the gray-haired proxy for the Liberal Party’s guest senatorial candidate wore a white shirt, denim pants, rubber shoes and an almost permanent smile.
“At my age, my daughter [still] sends me on errands like this,” he said to a cheering crowd that numbered close to a thousand.
Then Legarda, a widower, seduces the crowd with this line: “But I am happy because I get to see beautiful women like you, and I have proven that my heart still beats for you.”
The oldest among stand-ins of Team PNoy senatorial candidates, Legarda proved to be physically strong, appearing also in sorties in the City of San Fernando and Guagua town till early evening.
The easy rapport might be due to his background, according to Legarda’s daughter: “Papa studied in Ateneo. He was a car salesman when I was born. [He] then went to his own business in sugar trading.” Retired, he farms and plays golf, the senator said.
Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV, President Aquino’s cousin, caught up at the San Fernando and Guagua rallies.
Aurora Rep. Sonny Angara, sick with flu, was represented here by his mother Gloria, a Kapampangan from the Manalang clan of Mexico and Masantol towns.
“Sonny believes the Filipinos are outstanding,” Gloria said, before she took a swipe at “the other party that is an obstacle to progress.”
In other campaign tours, Angara’s wife, Tootsy, fills in for him.
For microfinance advocate Bam Aquino, it was his wife, Timi Gomez, who pitched in for him.
Timi portrayed him as a young man at 34 who has become a “veteran of 200 rallies.” “He has the mark of the Aquinos in public service,” she said. The President’s cousin was six years old when Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated as he returned home from political exile in 1983. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon