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MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – It’s the ultimate photo-op.
It took United States President Barack Obama and a journalist-turned-politician to get Vice President Jejomar Binay and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas to momentarily set aside their rivalry, shake hands, pose for a photo, and smile.
No less than Senator Loren Legarda snapped a picture of the 2010 bitter rivals and likely 2016 political foes.
A former broadcast journalist, Legarda narrated the story behind her scoop. She said she, Binay, and Roxas were waiting for Obama at the army headquarters in Taguig City along with former President Fidel Ramos and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Tuesday morning, April 29.
“It was so hot and we had more than an hour yet. I just thought, ‘Mar and VP Jojo, why don’t you speak to each other, stand here, and I will take a picture.’ So they smiled and obliged,” Legarda said in a text message.
The rare photo opportunity prompted Ramos to commend Legarda.
“FVR commented to me that you really can’t shake the journalist out of Loren. I said it’s more than that. National reconciliation, and it lightened the mood,” she said. “Then I asked Mar to take my photo when President Obama shook my hand after his speech.”
Legarda said it was not the news value of the photo but basic courtesy that led her to ask the two men to pose for the photo.
“I actually did not think of it at all as journalistic. I just thought that we were only 5 in that hot room and, hey, we should all be talking to each other,” she said.
The senator said she was able to bring Binay and Roxas together because she has ties with the two rivals. She and Binay were together in the 2004 campaign of the opposition, where she became the running mate of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr.
“I was the common denominator because Mar is a childhood friend, VP Jojo is a longtime friend from FPJ days, and FVR was my mentor in politics, while Sonny [Trillanes] is my new colleague,” Legarda said.
Incidentally, Legarda, Binay, and Roxas all ran against each other in a tough 2010 vice presidential campaign. After the election, Roxas filed an electoral protest contesting the victory of Binay, whose come-from-behind success surprised his rivals.
Trillanes said in a press briefing Wednesday that he did not find Binay and Roxas awkward in shaking hands, and it “seemed natural.”
“I saw there was no hesitation so probably they are used to things like that,” he quipped.
Roxas has been coy about his presidential ambitions, but he is widely reported to be the standard bearer of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) in 2016, again going up against the opposition’s Binay, seen as the frontrunner in the race for chief executive.
Yet the LP president-on-leave and the opposition leader momentarily forgot about politics, and tweeted their photo together.
With @VPJojoBinay during Obama visit. Photo courtesy of @loren_legarda pic.twitter.com/21fVS0GMvD
— Mar Roxas (@MARoxas) April 29, 2014
Salamat, Sen. @loren_legarda for the photo with SILG @MARoxas! #ObamaInPH pic.twitter.com/AIniryvizc
— Jejomar C. Binay (@VPJojoBinay) April 29, 2014
On Monday, Binay and Roxas were also part of the group of officials who welcomed Obama upon his arrival, but the two were not seen talking to each other.
Details of the moment of “reconciliation” on Tuesday were known only to the politicians in the group, with their aides unaware of what happened.
Asked what led his boss to shake Roxas’ hand, Binay’s spokesman Joey Salgado said he did not know. He joked, “Heatstroke.” – Rappler.com
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