Don’t call her “first lady,” should her husband win next year’s presidential race, broadcaster Korina Sanchez-Roxas said on Friday, shortly after President Benigno Aquino III endorsed Interior Secretary Mar Roxas as standard-bearer of the ruling Liberal Party.
“I don’t want to be (called) ‘first lady,’” Sanchez-Roxas told reporters with a laugh. “I’m allergic to that term because it connotes that there’s a ‘second’ or ‘third (lady).’
“I think ‘only lady’ is more appropriate,” she added.
READ: Is Korina Sanchez ready to become first lady?
The broadcaster, who sat beside her mother-in-law, clan matriarch Judy Araneta-Roxas, during the endorsement, admitted that President Aquino’s declaration of support for her husband was an emotional moment for him.
Roxas gave up his presidential bid in 2010 in response to the swell of support for Mr. Aquino to seek the highest elective post after his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, died of colon cancer in August 2009.
Even while Roxas was going over his prepared speech before they left their home in Cubao, Quezon City, he was already in tears, Sanchez-Roxas said.
“I actually reminded him not to cry. I said I’d do that for him instead. But he’s really emotional. Even old photographs can make him tear up,” she added.
‘Teflon effect’
The broadcaster, who billed herself Roxas’ “No. 1 fan” defended her husband from critics during Friday’s event at the packed Kalayaan Hall of Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan City.
“We have been criticized before and we’re ready for that. But if the criticisms are not true, they will not stick. I call that the ‘teflon effect.’ If you’re too worried about (criticisms), you’ll get nowhere,” she said.
The news reader and radio commentator said she was ready to give up her career to take an active role in the Roxas’ campaign, which was expected to echo President Aquino’s daang matuwid (straight path) theme.
“I love my job as a broadcast journalist; it’s the best job in the world,” Sanchez-Roxas said. “But there’s a much bigger calling for my husband. That’s one of the reasons I married him: I’m attracted to that calling as well,” she added.
She will also focus on the charity work she started as host of the TV magazine show “Rated K,” the ABS-CBN TV personality said.
True calling
“Journalism isn’t my true calling. It’s (doing) charity (work). That’s my contribution to Mar,” she said. “I will leave everything behind just to be beside him wherever he goes.”
She added: “We have one heart for public service, that’s something we have in common.”
As if to acknowledge the circus-like air of political campaigns in the country, Sanchez-Roxas said she was willing to sing and dance at her husband’s campaign sorties.
That is, as long as she is paid a talent fee,” she added in jest.
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