By Junex Doronio

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS, as the saying goes, seemingly suggests that the recent photo of a “social dinner” between former President and now Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former Vice President and defeated 2022 presidential candidate Leni Gerona Robredo could be an indication that the former has advised the latter to run for governor in Camarines Sur in 2025.

“I recently had a social dinner with former Vice President Leni Robredo and mutual friends from Bicol. We chatted about Bicol politics,” GMA readily admitted in her statement issued on Saturday, September 9.

According to politiko.com.ph, the dinner was organized by the son of Robredo’s best friend, who’s married to the daughter of Arroyo’s chief of staff.

It further said that “Alita Mercado, who posted the photos of Arroyo and Robredo on Facebook and was also in the frame—is the mother of San Pablo, Laguna Mayor Art Mercado.

The Mercados own JAM Liner Inc. a bus company with routes from Manila to Laguna, Batangas, and Quezon.”

Not really surprising since Robredo served as Camarines Sur’s Third District Representative from 2013 to 2016.

Her late husband, Jesse Robredo, served as Naga City mayor from 2001 to 2010.

To recall, as early as June 2021 rumors were flying thick and fast that Robredo would abandon her presidential ambition and run for Camarines Sur governor instead.

This swirled after former Camarines Sur Congressman Rolando “Nonoy” Andaya Jr. declared that Robredo would seek the gubernatorial seat.

Andaya and his local allies in Camarines Sur have been urging Robredo to run for governor.

It’s an open secret that Nonoy Andaya is a political archenemy of the Villafuerte dynasty in their province.

When Robredo eventually ran for president in 2022, Nonoy Andaya had no choice but to run for governor in Camarines Sur. He lost to 26-year-old Vincenzo Renato Luigi R. Villafuerte, popularly known as LRV.

Even former senator Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV thought that Leni Robredo would run for governor of Camarines Sur because she signed up for the Philippine Identification System at the registration office in Magarao town.

With her reputation as a “king-maker” as GMA was evidently behind the political marriage of Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte in the 2022 elections, it is not far-fetched that this time she is pushing for Robredo to take a shot at the highest post in Camarines Sur.

Indeed in Philippine politics, there are neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies but only permanent political interests. (ai/mnm)