'THE SECOND PRESIDENT'

MANILA, Philippines - Moments before news came that Sally Villanueva, one of the three convicted drug mules executed in China last week, had died by lethal injection, her sister Mirasol Delfinado, was ranting about what she perceived as neglect by the government. In the same breath, however, Delfinado expressed gratitude to Vice President Jejomar Binay. “The Vice President tried to save my sister,” she said.

Minutes earlier, as Delfinado and the rest of the community in Freedom Park in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, waited anxiously for the imminent execution, a village official, Jess Gerbabuena, expressed essentially the same sentiment. "He was trying everything he could, and we are thankful," Gerbabuena said.

The singling out of Binay came in the same week that surveys were released suggesting surging public approval for the vice president - and sobering reviews of President Benigno Aquino III.

Binay himself has been gracious when facing media, publicly attributing his approval ratings to the overall performance of the Aquino administration. But the vice president's star is clearly rising -- and along with it, questions as to what that suggests about (or means for) President Aquino.

While the President may have deftly avoided a difficult situation by passing it on to his vice president, he cannot afford to keep doing this without risking the heightening perception that he himself is not doing enough for the people. It could hurt not just his own projection, but also those of other people close to him like his running mate in the 2010 elections, former senator Mar Roxas II, who has a pending election protest against Binay.

For one thing, projecting an "action man" image seems like second nature to Binay.

Days before the executions in China, Binay fired off last-minute letters and appeals to Beijing, comforting the families with an earnestness that many saw in stark contrast to the clumsy handling by the DFA of OFWs in distress in Taiwan, the Middle East, and then Japan. Binay's positioning was different from the line taken by President Aquino.

While Palace functionaries insisted the government had done its best to stop the executions, the President, with three days to go before the executions, took pains to reassure China that Beijing's ties with Manila will in no way be strained by the episode. Political observers said the position was either politically tone-deaf or dismissive of what the families of Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain were going through.

Political analyst Malou Tiquia, founder of the political lobbying firm Publicus, said the assurances to China represented "a misreading of the situation by the President’s communications team.”

Or it could simply be that the vice president stood out exceptionally well because, one, he did successfully get that reprieve in February and, two, because the President is perceived not to have done much about the executions, a perception that is not entirely accurate because he did, after all, ask Binay to take charge of the crisis – an act that might reflect on Aquino’s wisdom as much as it does on Binay’s competence.

The China crisis “has given Binay a stage to project himself as an action man, on an issue that is close to the hearts and minds of millions of Filipinos,” said Bobby Tuazon, executive director of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, a non-profit advocacy and political research group. “He strikes a chord with the sentiments of many Filipinos.”

Beyond having a firm grasp of the public pulse, however, is Binay’s apparent appreciation of what the executions meant to OFWs, the so-called “modern day heroes” who often complain that the honorific is meaningless.

Binay got a taste of the OFWs’ plight in his recent trips to the Middle East, visiting and talking with OFWs, particularly those in distress. “OFWs have this deep resentment toward consular officers,” said a Binay adviser who declined to be identified. “He was told about such matters as disrespectful consular employees who take them for granted, OFWs who had to wait for hours while consular employees close down their offices just to have lunch, and distressed OFWs who are unattended.”

This is one reason Binay had a different perspective on the China executions issue, the adviser said. “The position of the Department of Foreign Affairs was not to offend China. Binay thought that should not be the case. We had to take into account the families of the OFWs and the political situation back home,” he said.

“Binay felt that the President had to have inputs other than those being fed him.”

Some of these inputs were contained in a confidential memorandum where Binay outlined a basic idea of requiring a “reorientation” of consular and diplomatic functions abroad. “The diplomatic corps had to be reoriented toward serving the welfare of OFWs. Their job should no longer be about diplomatic cocktails and hobnobbing with movers and shakers,” the adviser said.

Aquino officials have said there really wasn’t any choice for the Philippines other than to respect China’s legal processes. It was clear to the administration that China would not budge on its decision to execute the three.

At the same time, however, the government did not lack in attempts to try to win a reprieve, with Aquino writing three letters to Chinese president Hu Jintao. And when the stay of execution was granted in February, it was a victory of sorts for the Philippines because it was the first time Beijing - notorious for having executed more people than any other country in the world – granted such a request from an ally, spokesman Edwin Lacierda earlier told reporters.

“Trying to strike a balance - of not raising expectations and not giving the impression that you were not trying your best –that was what we were trying to do,” Ricky Carandang, head of Aquino’s communications group, told interaksyon.com in an interview.

Despite Aquino's efforts, apparently it was Binay’s projection in the China crisis that resonated better with people. His popularity shot up, even exceeding the president's, according to the latest surveys by the Social Weather Stations.

While Aquino was preoccupied with the economy and going after his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, no one was effectively minding the OFWs as they faced one crisis after another in many parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. “The administration has not gotten around to prioritizing OFWs, ”the Binay adviser said.

Because of Binay, “the government suddenly had concrete actions going on. They see that in the vice president, who now symbolizes the potential of this administration to do something. I think that’s what the people appreciate about this, even those who lost their loved ones” last week, he added.

As a result, according to political analysts, the President is now faced with the unusual predicament of being compared to his vice president, something that rarely occurs in Philippine politics, where vice presidents often work silently, performing functions that are sometimes too ceremonial to be noticed.

Aquino, says Tiquia of Publicus, “is laid back – and here is somebody in the person of Binay who is action-oriented, the kind of person who doesn’t care how to do it as long as he gets it done. Obviously, a lot of people will look at Binay.”

Tuazon, of Cenpeg, looks at it another way. “We can trace the Binay phenomenon further to the fact that many Filipinos have been hankering for Aquino to translate his election promises into action, and they haven’t seen anything concrete yet,” he said. “Filipinos have been waiting for action, for leadership and they’ve found it in Binay.”

Or, as Tiquia puts it, in the eyes of many Filipinos, Binay “is not even the vice president -- he is the second president.”

It may also be noted at this point that while vice presidents coming from a party different from those of the president tended to project themselves as opposition leaders, Binay so far has behaved as someone fully cooperative with Aquino---which may partly account for the tendency of some people to simply transfer to him their unmet expectations of a president perceived as laid-back.

THE TIES THAT BIND

In February, there had been a push to bury the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, a highly contentious proposal in a country that has not gotten closure over the Marcos dictatorship. Saying he would be biased if he made the decision himself to allow it or not, Aquino tossed the matter to Binay.

Aquino was, not surprisingly, criticized for it. “It was a defining moment for President Aquino and he throws it to his vice president?” asked an incredulous Tiquia.

But there seems to be no debate that the President's choosing Binay to decide on such an important and highly emotional issue speaks not just of the Aquino’s tendency to play safe but of his trust and confidence in Binay.

Binay’s relationship with Aquino, of course, goes back to Binay’s relationship with his mother, the late president Cory Aquino, to whom the vice president was intensely loyal.

“Binay’s position within the power structure of the administration is very secure because of his closeness with the Aquino family,”says Prospero de Vera, a professor of public administration at the University of the Philippines. “Aside from the factions” – referring to the so-called Balay and Samar factions within the present administration; Binay belongs to the Samar faction – “he has personal connections. He is extremely loyal to Cory. He is not a threat to the president,” de Vera points out.

Binay’s people say the vice president works at the disposal of Aquino, even if it means doing the tasks that would tend to inconvenience the president, such as Marcos. “If you want me to do something for you, just let me know,” Binay was supposed to have told Aquino at some point. “He promised to be always there for the president,” one of the vice president’s aides told interaksyon.com. “Whatever the president wants him to do, he’d do it.”

In some ways, therefore, what Binay is doing now for Aquino is just an extension of his devotion to the Aquino family. (Whether these tasks, like deciding where to bury Marcos, sit well with people who are also close to the family is another matter.

Rene Saguisag, a close Cory adviser, when asked by interaksyon.com about how Binay would handle the Marcos burial issue, replied: “Along with Joker [Arroyo], Teddy Boy Locsin and I, Jojo [Binay] was present at the creation, as it were. Unlike me, he accepts that in the real world, sentimentality is a luxury a politician can’t afford.”

But Binay, sources said, tries to strike a balance. “He has not upstaged the President. He doesn’t go to the limelight unless the President tells him to,” noted UP’s de Vera. “That’s a character that the previous vice presidents did not have.

As the administration moves on, it is logical that Aquino gets more comfortable with him.”

And as the relationship between the two most powerful men in Philippine politics gets cozier, it certainly raises expectations about the 2016 presidential elections, something that Binay supposedly has set his sights on. “Binay has really prepared himself to be one day president of the country,” Tiquia said.

But as recent events have shown, Binay doesn’t have to be elected president to be projected like one, especially if presented with such opportunities and challenges as the cases of the OFWs in crisis.

The next few months may yet show whether the other power blocs in the administration will move to rethink a strategy of tossing sticky problems and issues to a vice president who may keep using one crisis after another to cement his image as the citizens' "go to" man.

In a game of perceptions, Aquino may yet realize the people he calls his "real boss" are watching and comparing him with the “second president."