FORMER Senate president Franklin Drilon last week admitted that he wanted to aspire for president or vice president of the country, but had to abandon the idea because of the huge expense involved in waging a nationwide political campaign.
Currently chairman of the Liberal Party under which he is running for senator in the lineup of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III for president and Sen. Mar Roxas for vice president, Drilon said there is a need to revisit the election law allowing presidential candidates to spend billions of pesos.
“The rules of the game have changed,” he said. “Whereas before you went around, met people, tried to project yourself through free TV because advertising was banned then, today, it is extremely difficult to run for the presidency and the vice presidency, unless I am willing to roll the dice with a few hundred million pesos, which I do not have,” he said.
Drilon cited as example the case of Sen. Manny Villar who he said has spent over a billion pesos in tv advertisement in 2009 alone.
“If I had one billion pesos, I would not run because I would just live on its interest,” he said.
Drilon, a lawyer, first joined government in 1986 as deputy minister of justice in the administration of the late President Cory Aquino. He went on to serve as secretary of labor, secretary of justice, executive secretary and then was elected senator in 1995.
He said that while he is proud to admit that he started his political career with President Cory, his support for Noynoy, however, has nothing to do with his friendship with the late president.
“I see Noynoy as one who is very sincere, whose name is unblemished by any anomalies and is very qualified to be our president come May 2010,” he said. [AMA]
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