Foundling issue favors Grace Poe

THE CAMP of Vice President Jojo Binay is committing the same mistake that his detractors did to him during the 2010 election campaign, which made him win the country’s second highest position.

Binay’s camp is making a martyr of Senator Grace Poe, his potential rival for the presidency in next year’s election, by bringing out the fact that she was a foundling and that her parents’ identities are unknown.

Poe is an adopted child of actress Susan Roces and actor Fernando Poe Jr.

Is it her fault that her parent/parents abandoned her at the doorstep of a Catholic church in Jaro, Iloilo province?

What’s being a foundling got to do with running for the presidency?

For all we know, Grace’s parents could have been very poor or irresponsible, that’s why they abandoned her.

So why is being a foundling a hurdle to her running for a higher office?

Filipinos are very sentimental and love maudlin stories.

If Sen. Grace Poe capitalizes on her life story—from a foundling to a senator of the realm—she’s a sure winner for whatever higher position she aspires for.

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During the campaign leading to the 2010 elections, somebody spread the rumor that the Vice President had a querida (kept woman) and that he and his wife were about to split up.

Binay, looking kawawa (pitiful) and remorseful (we’re not sure if he was sincere), confessed his acts of infidelity to the public.

Whichever camp that spread the rumor did Binay a big favor; vice presidential candidate Binay overtook his closest rival, Mar Roxas, who was leading in the surveys, by a mile.

As an old song goes, “Everybody loves a lover,” and so do most Filipinos.

Joseph “Erap” Estrada won in all the elective positions he aspired for inspite or because of his reputation as a womanizer.

* * *

The tables have turned in the case of businessman William Godino who filed an impossible case of car theft in the Parañaque Regional Trial Court against his wife, Dr. Elizabeth de Guia-Godino.

(“Impossible” because how could a wife be charged with stealing a car from her husband?)

The car theft case has been dismissed and instead, charges of wife-beating (for violating the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004) have been filed against the businessman.

Dr. Godino filed the case against her husband in the Department of Justice with the help of “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo.”