His most loyal supporters thrust and harp on the credentials and qualifications that make him who he is: 33 years of executive experience, two terms as Mayor of Olongapo City, 1971 Con-Con delegate, Subic Bay Metropolitan Area Chairman, Secretary of Tourism, 40 years of volunteer work for the Philippine National Red Cross, six years in the Senate, 270 authored bills and resolutions, 13 enacted laws. In one long sentence, that’s Richard Gordon.
In many respects, Richard “Dick” Gordon should be a contender, if not the contender, for the most powerful position in Philippine politics. If the Presidency is all a matter of credentials and qualifications – as some of his most loyal supporters believe – then Gordon should have the two leading contenders quaking in their boots. Gordon has it all: the administrative and legislative background needed to run a country, and lead it to progress. Gordon took up the challenge and made his bid.
Yet perhaps the most qualified man with all the credentials needed to run a country, command the votes of millions, and earn the mandate of a nation is at the bottom of the surveys (which, again, to his most loyal supporters, do not matter). Richard Gordon is not doing well: the lack of machinery, the lack of funding, and adopting into technology too little, too late. The way things are looking now, Dick Gordon is not poised to win the Presidency anytime soon. Gordon is not jockeying for position with the likes of Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar, but the scraps that fall up from the table with Jamby Madrigal, Eddie Villanueva, and Nicanor Perlas.
Gordon is definitely no longer a contender. Then again, I can be wrong: Gordon can be the dark horse of the 2010 Presidential race. That all begs us to ask: why?
