Chiz Escudero: Upbeat, ready to move on

PRESIDENTIAL candidate Grace Poe and running mate Chiz Escudero on the campaign trail in
Tarlac City MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

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.

WHEN Sen. Benigno Aquino III made his history-changing decision to seek the presidency in 2009, people often forget that it wasn’t just Mar Roxas’ political ambition that got derailed; Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero’s presidential aspiration became collateral damage as well.

Seven years later, Escudero is seeking the vice presidency as running mate of independent presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe. Will he be luckier this time, just as his second stab at romance paired him off with one of the country’s prettiest stars?

In an interview near his Quezon City townhouse, it was hard to tell if Escudero was just tired after five straight days on the campaign trail, or if he was on edge after having lost his early lead in the surveys and ending a poor third to Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo.

Despite his slide in the surveys, the senator said his decision to leave the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) was probably the lowest point in his life. “I don’t want to be that candidate who pursued his political ambition even if he knew that he would take his friends and loyal supporters to certain defeat,” he said of his decision to withdraw from the presidential race.

4th-generation pol

Born Francis Joseph Guevara Escudero on Oct. 10, 1969, the man who would be Vice President is a fourth-generation politico.

His great grandfather, Salvador Sr., was governor of Sorsogon province while his grandfather was mayor of Casiguran in Sorsogon. His father, the late Salvador “Sonny” Escudero Jr., was the last agriculture minister of former strongman President Ferdinand Marcos, and was later elected Sorsogon representative for three straight terms, before opting to join the Ramos Cabinet as agriculture secretary. When Salvador Jr. died in 2012, Escudero’s mother, Evelina Guevara, took over his congressional seat in 2013 and is currently running for reelection.

He was too young to remember those days when his father was a Marcos crony, Escudero said, except that things changed after the Marcoses fled to Hawaii following the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution. All the people who used to visit their house with tilapia and fruits as gifts vanished, he recalled.

While his father’s term as Marcos minister lasted just 18 months, it was enough to mark Escudero as a Marcos loyalist in college and at the University of the Philippines School of Law.  “How could I join radical groups at that time? I’d go to a Samasa meeting and people there would look at me from head to toe as if I were a spy,” he said.

Not that it was a big deal at that time, as there were dozens of students with Marcos ties roaming the UP Diliman campus. In fact, Escudero’s friend and batchmate in law school, Angelo Jimenez, said they would feign disappointment when they visited the family home on Kitanlad Street, Quezon City, and found that Escudero wasn’t quite living it up like the son of a Marcos crony.

Beluga caviar

“We’d tell him, ‘C’mon Chiz, bring out the Beluga caviar and obscenely expensive liquor,’ and he’d just laugh and say, ‘I wish brods, for your own selfish sakes,’” said Jimenez, a member of the radical Kabataang Makabayan in UP.

Carrying the Marcos stigma in his college years did not prevent Escudero from being elected lord chancellor or head of UP Law’s Alpha Phi Beta fraternity whose prominent members include former Senators Heherson Alvarez and Robert Barbers, former Chief Justice Reynato Puno and former Pangasinan Gov. Oscar Orbos.

Escudero was only 28 when he joined the Batasan Pambansa in 1998 as Sorsogon representative, but it was a role he had been preparing for since his teens. “I’m probably the only politico who went through all aspects of a campaign from the bottom up,” said Escudero, recalling how he started out in 1984 when he campaigned for his father as a Marcos minister. He started out as a “poster boy,”  and learned to gauge the right consistency of glue that would make the posters stick well, without making them too difficult to remove after elections.

He also learned to manage campaign supplies, especially food and drinks.

FPJ spokesperson

Faced with the prospect of losing to a candidate riding on the post-Edsa euphoria, the elder Escudero gave his son a valuable lesson in politics. “He told me, ‘Son, what can we do if they don’t like us? We just have to accept it.’”

While his father lost, Escudero’s political career blossomed in 2004 when he won his third straight term as Sorsogon representative and became the minority floor leader of the House of Representatives for three years. Being tapped by action star and his wedding sponsor Fernando Poe Jr. to be his spokesperson in the 2004 presidential campaign also thrust

Escudero into prime-time news where he became known for his charisma and speaking skills.

With show biz an unshakeable twin of Philippine politics, Escudero gained media mileage as well with his colorful love life, as people closely watched his controversial romance with actress Heart Evangelista, 16 years his junior, whose mother was against the match from the start.

The couple had a grand Balesin Island wedding in February 2015, that Evangelista’s mother, Cecilia Ongpauco, snubbed very publicly. They have reconciled since, with Ongpauco present when Escudero formally declared his vice presidential bid in September 2015.

Escudero’s first wife was Cristine Flores, a lounge singer at Sulo Hotel in Quezon City, whom he married in 1999 and with whom he had twins in 2007. But the marriage was annulled in 2012. “It was mixture of a lot of things and it wasn’t just one reason—a clash of personalities, lack of time…. We’ve moved on and we’re happier now where we are,” he said.

Simple lifestyle

His father also gave him advice on handling power and fame, Escudero said. “He told me to keep a simple lifestyle no matter what position I’m in. It’s easier to fall from the second floor rather than from the 10th floor where you’d surely [wind up] dead,” he added.

On record, Escudero is listed as the second poorest among senators based on his latest statement of assets, liabilities and net worth. No wonder his critics had a field day lambasting him for mounting two lavish receptions when he married Evangelista.

His meteoric political rise has come with a price, his detractors say. After scorning the NPC in 2009, Escudero was described as a “political Icarus” by Inquirer columnist Amando Doronila, after a character in Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun, and plunged to his death when the heat melted his wings.

Lately, his critics have harped on his “robotic” style of speaking, describing the monotonous intonation as reminiscent of memorized speeches and, therefore, sounding insincere. “I think action speaks louder than words. Talk is cheap when it comes to attacking especially during the campaign period,” he countered.

Some circles have also accused Escudero of being too much like his father, the quintessential Marcos loyalist, and cited the vice presidential debates where he avoided a verbal confrontation with rival, Marcos Jr. To which Escudero trotted out three measures he had sponsored as senator—the Anti-Torture law, the Anti-Enforced Involuntary Disappearance Act and the Marcos Human Rights Compensation Bill—to show where he stands on issues concerning the Marcos legacy.

Ties to Marcos crony

Another thorn on his side is his purported ties to a Marcos crony, Roberto “Bobby” Ongpin, who said Escudero had managed to convince him to contribute to President Aquino’s campaign.

“Unfortunately, Chiz found out later that somebody close to the President had poisoned his mind against me. And probably this is why the kitchen sink, the toilet bowl and anything else you can think of are now being thrown at me,” Ongpin said.

Escudero said people still blamed him for supporting then Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay over Mar Roxas in the 2010 vice presidential elections.

“Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have supported [Binay],” he said. “But that’s just hindsight. Secretary Roxas and President Aquino also supported Arroyo in 2004 but they cut all ties with her when they found out what she was up to. Nothing wrong with that.”

Escudero has been accused of being a master manipulator as well, who sweet-talked Poe into running for President so he could run for Vice President. It was her decision, he said. “People don’t give her credit for being tough. She is an independent and strong woman.”

To Escudero, the most ideal form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. “Even the Bible says it is the most ideal, but that is just utopia, impossible to achieve because greed is part of human nature and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he added.

Although he is now trailing in the surveys, Escudero said he was optimistic the fight isn’t over, but that he was ready for any outcome. “As my father said, what can we do? We can’t force voters if they don’t like us. Life goes on.”