It was 1998, the year of the presidential election that elected Erap Estrada. In the simultaneous senatorial election, a first-timer won a seat in the Senate, receiving the highest number of votes nationwide. Loren Legarda became only the second woman in Philippine history to top a senatorial election (14,933,965 votes). The first was Pacita Madrigal Warns in 1955 (2,544,716 votes).
What captivated the electorate with Legarda? Her maximal exposure as a television anchor gave her a cut over the others. In ABS CBN, she had become news co-anchor with Angelo Castro Jr. in The World Tonight. The network had later made her host of her own current affairs series, The Inside Story. In 1998, no other senatorial candidate had the full advantage of daily name recall.
As is usual in Philippine politics, politicians seek higher national positions because these roles offer greater control over state resources, deeper patronage networks, and long-term family influence. Higher offices control larger national budgets and public funds. The belief is they can use these resources to deliver direct favors, jobs and financial aid, thereby securing loyal voter bases. Senators and Congress representatives know this game so well: clientilism. The lure to establish dynasties begins here.
For Loren Legarda, her ambition for higher office peaked after only six years as senator. It was rapid. In 2004, she ran as the vice presidential candidate to Fernando Poe Jr. It was also the first of her many jumps from one political party to another as political butterfly. The quintessential Legarda as traditional politician was born in 2004: one who changes political allegiance for power and convenience, shifting sides for survival.
She lost the vice presidency in 2004 to Noli de Castro.
She ran for the Senate again in 2007. In 2008, she became a fierce critic of Senate President Manny Villar and was part of the group that orchestrated Villar’s ouster. Two years later, she ran as vice president again under another party, the Nationalist People’s Coalition. Her presidential candidate was – but what else does a political butterfly do – Manny Villar.
Hidden wealth
Twelve years as national politician is sufficient time to build one’s financial base. Of course the best political survival way is to conceal as hidden wealth what had been accumulated. In May 2013, just as Legarda was seeking reelection under the administration ticket, businessman and public interest advocate Louis Biraogo filed a complaint against her.
Biraogo had alleged that Legarda had misdeclared her assets in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN). Biraogo showed evidence that in 2006, Legarda had bought a posh residential condominium unit in New York City at the cost of US$700,000. The Biraogo complaint had serious implications: violations of the anti-graft law and the code of conduct and ethical standards of public officials.
Fifteen days later, Biraogo filed another complaint against Legarda in the Department of Justice. This time, it was for allegedly using a shell company to hide ownership of a Bali-inspired mansion in Forbes Park.
Legarda herself identified the address at 40 Cambridge Circle when she issued printed invitations to a dinner she had hosted in 2009 for the visiting president of East Timor Jose Ramos Horta. Again, the mansion was undeclared in her SALN.
Not surprisingly for political butterflies, as viewed in the backdrop of her current political affiliation in the Sara Duterte impeachment trial, Legarda had then accused fellow senator Alan Peter Cayetano as the hand behind the complaints. It was a plot to keep her from leading the senatorial elections. Grace Poe topped that elections, not Legarda.
On June 6, 2013, the DOJ turned over the Biraogo complaints to the Ombudsman. Biraogo intimated to this writer that to this day, he had no idea why the Ombudsman had never acted on the complaints. Did Legarda receive protection as a senator allied with the second Aquino administration? The Ombudsman then was Conchita Carpio Morales.
Today, we already know what butterfly wings Legarda had under the Rodrigo Duterte regime. In 2019, she began fattening her dynasty by fielding her brother Antonio Agapito as congressman of Antique, the ancestral home of her Gella maternal grandmother. Was she ever conversant in the Kinaray-a language?
A dynast is clever with name recall. In the certified list of candidates for Antique representative, Legarda had packaged her brother as “Legarda AA Inday Loren.” Salvador Ungsod of Bugasong town petitioned the Comelec to declare AA Legarda as a nuisance candidate.
Didn’t support home network, ABS-CBN
Under Duterte who she allied herself with, we saw the Legarda who had become adroit at self-preservation. In the July 2020 voting to deny the franchise of ABS CBN at the behest of Rodrigo Duterte’s vendetta against the network, Legarda abstained.
Legarda cited a House rule that barred bill authors from voting otherwise. She had authored House Bill 6293 that would have renewed the ABS CBN franchise. She had claimed that the rule on conflict of interest barred her from voting to deny the franchise. The House said otherwise – the rule applies only to members of the legislative franchises committee who are NOT ex-officio members. Legarda was ex-officio: she was House Deputy Speaker.
Expect the same template for the Sara impeachment trial: Legarda’s prolonged absence for a purported “illness” will not entitle her to vote for the final verdict. She will hit two birds with one stone –self-preservation from tne wrath of both pro-Duterte and anti-Duterte forces.
UP Antiqueño slams Legarda’s opportunism
The UP Antiqueño statement hits the nail on the head. Loren Legarda is a reflection of a long career defined by opportunism.
“We demand that Senator Loren Legarda and Congressman Leandro Leviste return to the Philippines to directly answer the plunder and graft complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman. Accountability for the People! Integrity in Governance!”
The voice of the Karay-a people of Antique puts Loren Legarda and Leandro Leviste to shame.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
