The Road to Malacañang
Twenty-four months from now, the presidential candidates will file their certificates of candidacy and the jostling for the presidency has begun. And nobody is in control of the agenda—not even the Palace, who does not have a strong candidate for President in 2010, unless you are thinking of Noli de Castro. Ho-hum. The only thing clear for me is that the Opposition would again be strong in the senatorial run—and even in the run for the next President and Vice-President of the country.
Since I am running as a senator of the republic in 2010, I am also attending political meetings with different people and parties for platform-sharing, coalition-building and forming of alliances. During one such meeting, one person I do not know rode the high horse and began badmouthing everyone running for president, except who I knew must be his boss. I just sat there patiently and looked through him. But when he said, “I do not like Mar Roxas because he was born with a golden spoon,” I had to correct him.
I could listen to nonsense as long as it is grammatical and idiomatic. After all, I have been teaching English for the last 21 years and sat through classes of some rich brats. But if it is ungrammatical or unidiomatic, it is my bounden duty to correct them. I told the political operator: “Excuse me, the correct idiom is born with a silver spoon. Period.” You should have seen the ashen faces of the men—tough, rich, old men—around me.
So the next time I met with the staff of Mar Roxas, I told them to be wary. The decibels for the noise of 2010 had begun. They would hit him and his relationship with ABS-CBN broadcaster Korina Sanchez. Wags would ask: Why are they still not yet married? Is there something business-like in their relationship? They would spread the rumor that an unmarried guy of 50 must be gay. (I do not think so, and since I am the queen of Philippine gay lit, my gaydar could sniff closet cases a mile away.) In the next breath, they would gossip about his relationships with prominent women in the past (The names fly in the air: Jessica Rodriguez, Liana Romulo, Doris Magsaysay Ho, etc.)
MAN ON A MISSION. From Wall Street banker to seasoned politico
They would hit him and the mother of his son, Paolo (Why does the public not know who is Paolo’s mother?) They would say his mother, Judy, is really the power behind him (Why is she invisible when she is the one pulling the strings?) They would attack him for his silence from 2004 to 2007 (Why is he in the public eye only now?) Why did Mar Roxas support the pardon for Erap Estrada? They would even talk about the hair of Mar Roxas, his clothes, and his shoes—everything under the torrid, political sun of a presidential campaign.
Mar makes no bones about his relationship with Korina. “It’s not a secret and we are doing well. We love each other. You know this thing, we let time and the relationship hold. Both of us are extremely busy. Sometimes, when we are going on a function, let us say at ABS-CBN, I would be coming from the Senate on Roxas Boulevard and she would be coming from Makati, where she lives. Believe it or not, we would meet at EDSA, at the gasoline station near McKinley Road. That is our rendezvous point, as they say. We do that so we could be together in the same car because that is still 30 minutes of traveling and we would be together. That quiet togetherness is very important. I’m not a teenager anymore. So right now, the highest form of relationship with another is having the security and the integrity and the wholeness of it. I am aware that people are asking when we would get married. I know marriage is important. I think both of us have waited this long and if marriage comes, when it comes, then it will come. Meanwhile, we’re very happy with our relationship.”
“If you don’t like the situation, then walk away. That’s your ultimate safety net, especially when it comes to ethical issues. When you don’t like something, walk away.”
Before the senatorial campaign began in February of 2004, he admitted he had a son, Paolo, but did not want photos of him taken to protect the son’s privacy. The word on the son’s mom is mum. But of his mother, the redoubtable Judy Araneta Roxas, Mar says: “I love my mother. I remember that one of the things my father told me before he died were the same things his father told him earlier: ‘Do not cause your mother to shed a tear.’ Which is not to say that you don’t discuss, you don’t argue, you don’t have your own point of view. I mean, I think my mother’s ambitions and dreams for me are the same as any mother’s ambitions and dreams for her children. She and my father sent me to good schools. My family and these schools taught me my values. In our family, we use the analogy of the compass. And Korina is now considered part of the family. When she is in the house, she and my mom talk. They talk together. In fact, when they start their women talk, I leave them.”
As to the silence from 2004 to 2007, Mar says that people should remember he did not vote for the Human Security Act. “I thought it was a misnomer, because it’s not a human security act, it’s really a tool that can be used to terrorize our own people. You can be picked up and in effect be hidden forever, because the limitation of five days can actually be extended by a simple action. So all these extra-judicial killings and salvaging might become more frequent. I also went against Executive Order 464, the Calibrated Pre-emptive Response (CPR), and Proclamation 1017 of Mrs. Arroyo. I voted against all of these, I’ve stood my ground, I stood where I thought the country ought to be. I am now the head of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce that grilled government people regarding ZTE and JPEPA.” As for the pardon for Erap, he claims that when he was the DTI Secretary, the former President did not ask him for any special favor for a friend or a corporation. He thinks that a man of 70 who has been in incarceration for six years deserves to walk free—and damn the torpedoes from some friends in civil society. And Mar Roxas is one of the few opposition people who is not being given his pork barrel, courtesy of a vindictive Malacanang.
To all these bullets, Mar Roxas just shrugs his shoulders. “It’s important to know who you are, where you are. Being congressman, DTI secretary, senator—these are all just titles, these are just jobs. When I was a congressman, I never used the number 8 license plate. When I was the DTI secretary, I never used number 6, and now as a senator, I never use number 7. When I knew I’d be late for a senate session because of the traffic, I take the MRT in Cubao because I live there. You can’t take these titles seriously. Otherwise, you’ll just get all screwy. I am Mar Roxas—I am the same person, the same clothes, the same shoes, everything. But all of a sudden, you enter a building now and you’re called ‘Honorable.’ HON. ka na ngayon, wow! I mean, you know, you have to take this tongue-in-cheek. When the function is a buffet, you don’t line up any more. They now bring you a plate full of food which—well, since I eat everything—I completely finish everything on that plate!”
It is one of the perks of being an honorable, surely, among other things. But Mar says that being HON. is not always fun.
“Now that I am called an HON., typically, the conversation in my table is respectful, stilted, and formal. Your friends and the halakhakan is actually happening in another table, and that is where you want to sit—but sadly, you cannot.”
