AT the rate their own people are refusing to accept the invitation to run for vice president in next year’s elections, the administration party Lakas-Kampi-CMD might end up scraping the bottom: ask President Arroyo herself to run. At least having her pair off with the party’s top bet, Gilbert Teodoro, would provide honesty to their campaign.

Indications are that Teodoro would try to dissociate himself from the unpopular Arroyo and her administration a-la John McCain (who lost to Barack Obama anyway despite distancing from then United States president George W. Bush last year). But that would be a form of lying. So why won’t Gibo just pair with his President and be honest?

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Then they can call themselves the “Taray Team.” Remember when Teodoro was asked by some sectors to resign from his post as defense secretary so he won’t use the position for his campaign? The man got angry and ranted about him not wanting to be dictated on by anybody. There’s another similarity: Gloria and Gibo have fake smiles.

But seriously, how many personalities have refused to bite the party’s bait for them to run for vice president? Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos-Recto would rather run for reelection. So, too, Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia. Negotiations with Francis Escudero and Loren Legarda are in limbo. No, thanks, said Bong Revilla and Juan Miguel Zubiri.

Even Prospero Pichay, who lost in his senatorial bid under la Gloria’s party in 2007, was offered the slot and did not accept it. As I said before, there’s compelling reason why Ronaldo Puno let go of his vice presidential bid months ago under Lakas-Kampi. Numbers don’t lie and, for Lakas-Kampi, the numbers are miserable.

Contrast that with the way Sen. Manny Villar has been “silently” managing his campaign. Of course, with his infomercials, the Villar candidacy is far from silent.

But a supporter of Noynoy Aquino did notice how Villar conducted himself during his most recent visits to Cebu. No wonder his raiding of Lakas-Kampi stalwarts has been effective.

But what should prove that Team Villar is better than the campaign managers of Lakas-Kampi is when reports that he has snagged Sen. Loren Legarda as running mate is confirmed.

Leaders of Villar’s Nacionalista Party (NP) had announced that their leader’s running mate is “maganda, matalino at maka-kalikasan.” That could be a giveaway.

At the rate things are going, the political analysts’ view that the 2010 presidential elections will be an NP-Liberal Party battle could turn true. The NP has announced that it has reached the self-imposed 2,000 target for the number of incumbent officials recruited to the party. The LP of Aquino and Sen. Mar Roxas is also growing by the day.

Where that would place Teodoro and the administration party would be a no-brainer: in the dust. Incidentally, the LP-NP rivalry in 2010 will resurrect the old one that prevailed when the two parties surfaced during the early stage of Philippine democracy under United States tutelage. The 2010 elections would therefore be historic, in a way.

Nobody thought that this would happen, though. Only a few years ago, both the LP and the NP were struggling, the number of its members marginal. But with the ascendancy of Villar in the NP and Noynoy-Mar in the LP, things have changed. This just shows that nothing much has changed in our politics. It is still personality-based.

(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)