Why Robredo’s lagging behind, per Salceda

NAGA CITY—Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo’s lack of presidential ambition is making her candidacy for the vice presidency a “hard sell” among fellow Bicolanos, according to Albay Gov. Joey Salceda.

Salceda said Bicolanos had never stopped dreaming that a President would finally emerge from Bicolandia and Robredo’s lack of ambition has not been working in her favor.

He noted that, so far, the late Sen. Raul Roco, who hailed from Camarines Sur, was the only Bicolano to join the presidential race when he ran in the 1998 election won by Joseph Estrada.

The vice presidency is seen as a stepping stone for the presidency as shown by Estrada, then the Vice President of Fidel Ramos, and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was Estrada’s Vice President before she ascended to the presidency after Estrada was ousted. Arroyo was later elected to a 6-year term in 2004.

Salceda, the only Liberal Party (LP) governor in Bicol after Camarines Norte Gov. Edgardo Tallado was expelled from the administration party last year, said, however, that Robredo’s ordinariness and her being the widow of Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo were to her advantage.

“Jesse’s death had a patriotic glowing element,” said Salceda, the LP candidate in the second congressional district of Albay.

“In my view, ordinariness will work for her not as a housewife but as a government social welfare worker, a reformist who can espouse earth-shaking reform to be differentiated from others,” Salceda said.