For the second time since early March, House Deputy Speaker Camille Villar called in sick and skipped a sortie with the administration’s Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas. 

The coalition’s campaign manager Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco said at around 2:27 pm, Friday, April 25 — or a few minutes before candidates’ call time at the rally site in Dagupan, Pangasinan — a staff member of Villar informed the slate’s group that she wouldn’t be able to make it because she wasn’t feeling well. 

Her campaign staff, in a separate message to Rappler, confirmed as much. “May sakit po (She’s sick),” we were told. 

Getting sick at the beginning, in the middle, or, in this case, the homestretch of a campaign isn’t exactly surprising. After all, both the days and nights are long in the 90 days of the national campaign period. 

It’s especially taxing for the youngest Villar in national politics, since she hasn’t been seeing the same dominant numbers the two Villars — her mother, outgoing Senator Cynthia, and brother, Senator Mark — before her, enjoyed when they sought their Senate posts. 

But her absence — even if it is because she’s sick — piques the interest of more than a handful of people because days before the sortie in Pangasinan, Villar released a campaign ad featuring Vice President Sara Duterte, the erstwhile ally of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., chief campaigner of the Alyansa slate. 

The first time Villar had to beg off from a sortie because she was sick was on March 15 in Tacloban City, or the first Alyansa campaign rally after the Marcos administration arrested Vice President Duterte’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, then turned him over to the International Criminal Court. 

Weeks of Villar skipping Alyansa sorties have fueled talk that her family — and maybe even the Nacionalista Party — would be leaving the coalition. 

Tiangco had earlier said in a statement, without naming Villar, that Alyansa bets were welcome to get endorsements. “Ang bawat pag-endorso na makukuha ng bawat kandidato ng Alyansa ay patunay na pagtango at pagyakap sa Bagong Pilipinas na isinusulong ng ating Pangulo. And that is what matters most,” he said on April 14. 

(Every endorsement that an Alyansa candidate gets is proof of the approval and acceptance of our President’s Bagong Pilipinas.) 

Yet an endorsement from Vice President Duterte is anything but approval and acceptance of President Marcos or his Bagong Pilipinas. 

At a campaign rally in Manila, Duterte openly criticized Marcos and his administration. The younger Duterte campaigned alongside what would have been an odd mix of characters a few years back — defeated 2022 presidential candidate and Manila mayoralty bet Isko Moreno and reelectionist Senator Imee Marcos, who left the Alyansa slate after former president Duterte’s arrest. 

President Marcos has been quite clear in his criticism of the Duterte brand of governance. In his stump speeches at Alyansa sorties, he’s made it a point to draw a contrast between his administration and the “pro-China,” bloody one under former president Duterte.

And yet, it seems, Villar is still on the Alyansa slate. Will she manage to have her cake and eat it too come May 12? – Rappler.com