From Rina Jimenez-David's column, At Large, dated April 16, 2010 published on Philippine Daily Inquirer
MIKE DEFENSOR HAS SERVED ONE TERM AS A councilor of Quezon City and two terms as a congressman during which he joined the group of young legislators that came to be known as the “Spice Boys,” spearheading the effort to impeach former President Erap Estrada.
After President Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency, Defensor along with the other Spice Boys were appointed to different Cabinet positions. He first held the post of chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), but left to take over as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
He then assumed responsibility as the official campaign spokesperson of President Arroyo in the 2004 campaign, after which he was appointed presidential chief of staff. By 2007, it appeared as if he would be a shoo-in for the Senate, but he lost even if he had the full backing of the President and the ruling party.
In the aftermath, he has made a reputation of sorts as the President’s “go to guy” when she needed someone to complete a project, especially one fraught with controversy and mired in competing interests and intractable lawsuits.
Most prominent of these assignments was as head of the Presidential Task Force on Naia-3, the airport that had become an embarrassment for the government since it remained shuttered and inoperable many years after its completion. “So many people connected to the project have died,” Defensor remarks in the course of a dinner with a group of media women. Both the judge and the public prosecutor handling the case, for instance, were gunned down by anonymous assailants. Not only did Defensor survive the assignment, he also fulfilled it, successfully opening Naia-3 for use by local airlines (for domestic flights), although the terminal has yet to be fully operational.
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ONE would think all his experience in both local and national legislatures, as well as his stints in the executive department would qualify him in his present run for mayor of Quezon City.
But as Defensor himself tells it, his candidacy is based not so much on his own personal ambition as on the pleadings of Quezon City representatives and councilors to contest the mayoralty against the incumbent vice mayor, Herbert Bautista, who is most popularly known as “Bistek,” the name of a character Bautista portrayed in his “previous life” as a young TV comic.
Defensor is running under the banner of the People’s Reform Party, which was founded fundamentally to support the candidacy of Miriam Defensor-Santiago when she ran for president. As far as I know, Defensor is the only other candidate running with the PRP. “At least I now rank No. 2 even if I just joined the party,” he quips.
Still, even with a hastily-cobbled machinery (his runningmate is councilor Aiko Melendez, who like “Bistek” also has showbiz roots), Defensor says he is confident of winning the vote in Quezon City. He shows us the findings of a survey he had commissioned which indicates that he enjoys an 11 percent lead over Bautista.
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THOUGH there are other candidates gunning for the mayoralty, among them Rep. Annie Susano, Defensor is clearly setting his sights on “Bistek.”
He brandishes documents that show where most of Bautista’s P300 million annual budget went, a long listing of caterers and restaurants that supposedly provided food for a slew of activities like training seminars and gatherings of youth.
Most of us wondered how the participants could have developed such huge appetites to consume all that food. In his defense, Bautista supposedly said the charges were simply “rehashed” and has refused to give a more detailed explanation.
To his credit, though, Defensor is likewise full of plans for the city, including building up the tourism infrastructure (he plans to turn the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center into a local version of Singapore’s Night Safari) while overseeing the development of business districts throughout the city.
Another big problem for Quezon City, he says, is education since the city—the biggest and richest in the country—also has among the largest populations of out-of-school-youth. One way he hopes to address the problem is by negotiating with private institutions to provide for subsidized tuition for poor students.
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Need I say more? I mean what is this guy's true motive? And where does his loyalty stands? He who embodies the pervasive personality of a traditional politician should not be elected in public office. I know there are lots of those in the government, but we have the choice to lessen those kind of people. Let's all be responsible for QC and vote the right person for the job. We wouldn't want to suffer for six years under an incompetent administration. And besides, would you vote for a candidate who go to great lengths just to ruin another candidate's reputation?
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