Honasan: A family guy, fierce warrior who will ‘run away’ when faced with a gun

(Editor’s Note: With a little less than a month before the mid-term elections in May, INQUIRER.net has decided to deviate from the usual platform interviews of senatorial and local candidates that have been aired and written about and instead get to know them up close and, perhaps a little more personal, as we hope so will you our dear readers. The series of interviews will be posted on our special election site, Vote 2013 under INQuest, starting this Wednesday with Senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan. Is the exercise meant to make these candidates look good? Definitely not. But we enjoin you to watch and listen and let your candidates tell their stories because, believe it or not, their stories are ours as well.)

MANILA, Philippines – Many know Senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan as a fierce warrior – the architect of at least three coup attempts, by his count, which tried to topple a government he helped install in 1986 in what we now know as the Edsa People Power revolution, a staunch ally of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile whom he considers a father and would “stop a bullet for”, and a former government fugitive who led authorities in a merry chase.

But people may want to know that Honasan is also, by his recollection, the “first truly independent” senator to win in a national election, the only one who can honestly say “Give me four” instead of “Give me five” because he does have only four fingers on his left hand, having lost his ring finger in an attempt to escape pursuing authorities during one of his Houdini acts years ago and who, after having taken bullets for a living, admits that he won’t  hesitate to “run away” when faced with a gunman today because “prudence is the better part of valor”.

He is also first and foremost a man, who faced with even the most tempting of situations today, won’t hesitate to choose his wife and children because “no force, sexy or otherwise, would allow me to divert from what I have settled down [with]”.

Honasan reveals all these and more in the first of a series of interviews by INQUIRER.net with senatorial and local candidates on INQuest: Vote 2013 ahead of the mid-term elections in May.