Presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe EDWIN BACASMAS
EDITOR’S NOTE:
We are running the profiles of the presidential and vice presidential candidates to offer voters insights into their character, hoping these will help the electorate make an informed choice on May 9.
IN A CRAMPED covered court in Caloocan City, gray-haired women jostled with their younger neighbors in the rush to get close to Sen. Grace Poe, hoping to shake her hand and give her a hug as she stumped for votes.
“I seem to be popular with the older crowd,” the presidential candidate said with a laugh.
That might not be difficult to explain: With her slim 5-foot, 95-pound frame and dramatic backstory, Poe cuts a vulnerable figure that older, maternal women instinctively seek to protect.
By now, everybody would have been familiar with Poe’s telenovela-like narrative: an infant abandoned in an Iloilo church who was adopted and raised by two of the most popular figures in Philippine movies—action star Fernando Poe Jr., and actress Susan Roces—who rose to become a senator and is now reclaiming the post her adoptive father lost in a controversial election.
Her quest to redeem her father’s name coupled with Poe’s fresh-faced appeal have captured voters’ interest, said political observers.
Emotional bond
“Her asset is being able to form an emotional bond with the voter. They like her right away. The moment you listen to Grace talk, you like her,” noted Sen. Sergio Osmeña III, who helped Poe strategize the 2013 campaign where she topped the senatorial race.
But while Osmeña acknowledged her strong points and described her as a hardworking lawmaker, he also believes that Poe would have made a better contender for the presidency in 2022 instead of 2016, a sentiment shared by not a few people.
Poe, a senator the past three years, had countered that being a newcomer to politics, she sees things with fresh eyes and a new perspective. “I can offer something to the table that’s probably a little bit more different and effective than (my rivals),” the 47-year-old Poe told the Inquirer multimedia forum back in January.
In the seven months since she formally declared her candidacy, Poe has been described as being too ambitious, an American, and a puppet of her running mate, Sen. Francis Escudero, and their powerful backers, including tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco.
On top of her thin political resumé, critics have seized on questions of residency, her doubtful status as a natural born Filipino, and her controversial parentage as munitions in several disqualification bids filed by various groups. One of the most popular contention had her being the love child of the late strongman President Marcos and her aunt, movie star Rosemarie Sonora.
Loyalty
Although the Supreme Court had since junked the disqualification bids, critics continued to question her loyalty, as she had once sworn allegiance to the United States. While her husband had since renounced his US citizenship, the specter of having an American family in Malacañang was still being raised by her rivals and detractors.
But Poe was driven to always do things well, long-time friends said, recalling the school days when she was star of the debating team and excelled in academics, certainly good preparations for politics, they added.
“Even then, she already had the talent of speaking her mind and choosing the right words,” recalled Valerie Mayor Sotto, a high school classmate from Assumption College.
Poe also had an interest in current affairs back then and had a mind of her own on those matters, said best friend Malu Gamboa. “She was aware of the world outside school,” she added.
Her favorite memory of Poe was when she helped classmates for a PE class by thinking up dance steps for taekwondo moves to the tune of Depeche Mode’s Blasphemous Rumours. “She led us to a high grade! I can’t think of that dance without smiling now,” Gamboa said.
Down to earth
The Poe they knew as a teenager was one who did not do anything half-baked, according to May Ann Locsin Katigbak. When Poe got into taekwondo, she made sure to get a black belt.
But while she excelled in school, Poe was also down to earth, her friends said, adding that she shunned heavy makeup and showy clothes and jewelry.
“She shops in bazaars and prefers to eat simple comfort food. It doesn’t take that much to make her happy,” Gamboa said.
It was no surprise for some of her friends when Poe decided to enter Philippine politics. In the two years she attended the University of the Philippines-Manila, Poe chaired the college freshman assembly and was the sophomore batch representative. She eventually took up political science in Boston College, where she cofounded the Filipino Cultural Club.
But any budding political inclinations took a back seat when Poe married Teodoro Misael Llamanzares the same year she graduated in 1991. She eventually worked as a kindergarten teacher, a procurement liaison and project manager in the US while raising three children.
FPJ’s electoral defeat allegedly because he was cheated in the 2004 presidential race, brought her back to the Philippines and into its political sphere, where she was appointed chief of the Movie and Television Ratings and Censors Board (MTRCB) in 2010.
Banking on her father’s name, she ran for the Senate in 2013 and landed the top spot with a record 20 million votes, making her potential presidential material.
In the 2016 race, Poe continues to invoke the FPJ name, running on the promise to help the poor as her father did, through a competent, sympathetic government “with a heart” that would offer a lot of free services, including free school lunches.
But the presidency wasn’t immediately on her mind after her Senate win, Poe said, except that she believes she could offer a better alternative to that being offered by her rivals.
By this time, however, the sheen of her Senate victory has dulled, and critics have swooped in to pick on perceived flaws in her candidacy. For one, they said, she could easily be controlled by her more politically experienced running mate, Escudero.
“I don’t know if I should use the word puppet, but he is a big influence, you now. That’s why she’s lost a lot of support,” Osmeña said, adding that her relative inexperience could make her too dependent on Escudero.
Tough woman
But friends said Poe was not one to allow herself to be manipulated. She’s smart enough to know when she’s being fooled, said Gamboa. “She is not a naive, impressionable person. She listens to different people, takes their input into consideration but makes up her own mind,” she added.
Gamboa also pointed to Poe’s performance in the second presidential debate—where she duked it out with Vice President Jejomar Binay by alluding to corruption allegations against him—as a turning point for many.
“They saw that she was a tough woman who could hold her own against any of the other heavyweights in the room,” Gamboa said.
People have also questioned if she could actually deliver on her glowing campaign promises. “She may have good programs, but can she do it?”
Osmeña asked. “Just from the point of view of her person, wouldn’t you make a better President if you had more experience? You first become Vice President so you would know the workings of government,” he added.
Freedom of Information
Nevertheless, Osmeña said, Poe has been a very serious and very dedicated senator who does her homework.
Poe led the passage of the freedom of information bill in the Senate, and chaired hearings on the Mamasapano encounter in which she pinpointed the President’s liability and those of top police and military officials in a botched counterterrorism operation.
She also hammered on the transportation department for its failure to address the problems besetting the Metro Rail Transit.
Poe could have stayed and enjoyed her comfortable life in the United States, but she gave it all up, said Sotto.
“That’s something not all of us will be able to do,” she added. “That’s what makes me really believe she is sincere in her hopes of giving our country a chance.” But politics can be an “ugly, thankless path at times,” Gamboa said, adding that Poe had to do a lot of praying and quiet reflection before deciding that she wanted to serve the country.
“I asked her pointblank if she really had what it takes to make this country better,” she said. “And she unflinchingly assured me that she could do it.”