Saturday, July 26, 2008 Gullas throws support behind Villar for president
REP. Eduardo Gullas (Cebu, 1st district) yesterday announced he will support Senate President Manuel Villar if he runs for president in 2010.
Gullas made the announcement during the first academic convocation of the University of the Visayas, a school owned by the Gullas family.
“When the time comes that he will be running for President, I will not hesitate to campaign not only in the University of the Visayas, not only in my district, not only in the Province of Cebu, but in the entire Region 7,” Gullas said yesterday.
Gullas is a former Talisay City mayor and Cebu governor and had served as Regional Development Council (RDC) chairman.
He said that once Villar will run for president, “I would expect each and every fellow Visayanian to help me campaign to make him the next President of the Republic of the Philippines.”
He said only Manuel Roxas became a House Speaker, Senate President and then President.
“He was a (House) Speaker. He is a Senate President. He will be President”, Gullas said, referring to Villar. He said history may repeat itself with another Manuel, referring to Villar.
Gullas said he will support Villar because he has done a lot of things for the country.
Villar, on the other hand, did not categorically say that he is running for president in 2010.
“Don’t admit and perhaps you will become President,” Villar said in jest.
Yesterday, Villar talked about his poverty-stricken life as a squatter in Tondo, Manila during his childhood and adolescence. He talked about how he had to sell food with his mother in order to survive.
He talked about now he did well in real estate through his entrepreneurial skills.
He said that despite all the problems the country is facing, the Senate will remain an independent lawmaking body for as long as he is the Senate President.
“We want to pass laws without pressure and for the greater good of the majority,” Villar said. (EOB)
