ANGELES CITY – Dawn Zulueta, Nora Aunor and Gabby Concepcion were the first celebrities introduced on stage during a “mini rally” held by the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party in its campaign sortie at the public market here Wednesday morning.
But the movie stars were not there. Instead, senatorial candidates Mitos Magsaysay acknowledged her introduction as Zulueta, Nancy Binay as Aunor, and Zubiri as Concepcion.
They were the earliest of the nine UNA candidates for senator to arrive at the public market, in a scheduled whole-day campaign sortie in Pampanga.
Without the traditional crowd-luring show business stars, the brief rally gathered an audience of only about 300 at the venue on the eastern side of the sprawling market compound in this city.
The market was UNA’s first destination in Pampanga that started with a downtown motorcade that disappointingly featured only candidates Binay and Ernesto Maceda.
By the time boodle fight lunch was ready in the market area at 10:30 a.m., candidates Gregorio Honasan, Jackie Enrile and the three Liberal party-UNA common candidates Chiz Escudero, Loren Legarda and Grace Poe Llamanzares remained missing.
Candidate Tingting Cojuangco who, during her short talk on stage, asked to be fed “balo-balo,” a Kapampangan dish of fermented rice that goes well with fried fish, was no longer around to partake of the lunch. No balo-balo, however, was in the menu.
UNA’s “three kings” Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay, ex-Pres. Joseph Estrada and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, whose huge photos were displayed as stage backdrop, also did not show up in the rally here.
Zubiri told Punto that the vice president was not expected, as he had to attend a scout jamboree in Mt. Makiling in Laguna, as he expressed hopes that the elder Estrada and Enrile would catch up in other motorcades and mini rallies slated later yesterday in Mabalacat, Magalang, and San Fernando.
Despite the controversy on the common candidates who have been attending campaign sorties of the LP and have yet to show up in UNA events, most of UNA senatorial candidates left the issue to their party’s executive committee.
Nancy Binay said in an interview she still harbored hopes that Escudero, Legarda and Poe-Llamanzares would still join her party’s campaign sorties. “The more, the merrier,” she said.
Senatoriable Richard Gordon said he would rather leave the issue to the decision of the three common candidates. “They are my friends and they are all competent,” he said.
“But of course I would rather have only nine of us (as UNA senatorial bets) as this would give me more time to talk (during campaigns),” he said in jest.
Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito declined to comment, saying he would rather leave to UNA’s executive committee the decision on whether to remove the three from UNA’s list of senatorial bets.
