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Revision as of 13:12, 26 March 2006 by 210.213.161.121 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Loren Legarda (born January 28, 1960) is a Filipino broadcast journalist and politician. In the 2004 Philippines general election, she ran for the position of Vice-President as the running mate of Fernando Poe, Jr.
Political career
She ran for the Senate in 1998 under the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP Party. She was elected with more than 15 million votes, becoming the senator with the highest number of votes in that year's election. In 1999, she was one who against the ratification of the Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement. In January 2001, she voted in favor of opening the second bank envelope that led to the second EDSA people power revolution. After the 2001 elections she was chosen to be the Senate's Majority Floor Leader.
Senator Legarda played a crucial role in the expeditious release of five military and police officers and personnel held captive by the CCP-NPA-NDF in April 1999. The captives included General Victor Obillo of the Philippine Army. In April 2001, Senator Legarda again championed human rights when she led the Humanitarian and Peace Mission for safe and successful return of Army Major Noel Buan to his family after almost two years of captivity by rebel groups. She was also instrumental in the release of fellow journalist Arlene dela Cruz from her abductors in Jolo,Sulu.
2004 elections
In 2003, she quit the administration party Lakas to join the opposition KNP coalition of Fernando Poe Jr. Her decision to switch sides prompted the former head of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Brigadier General Victor Corpus to call her a "political prostitute." Heated debates ensued between the two although the furor caused by the statement of Corpus died down as the country prepared for the 2004 presidential elections.
In the 2004 election, she lost to fellow ABS-CBN anchorman and Senator Noli de Castro.
After her bid in the election, she filed an electoral protest before the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal. In a PowerPoint presentation on the alleged electoral fraud case filed by Legarda against Noli de Castro, who won the vice-presidency against her in Philippine general election, 2004, Legarda and her principal witness, Segundo Tabayoyong, showed the Kapihan sa Manila forum how the cheating was done. It was a simpler and new way of cheating, used for the first time in the elections of 2004. They alleged that instead of changing the ballots at the precincts -- as was done in the past, which is difficult and labor-intensive -- the cheating was done on the election return (ER), the summary of the votes in the precincts. They alleged that these spurious ERs were prepared in advance, by a special force of about 200 persons in two places in Metro Manila (one in a hotel near the Edsa highway) and then sent to the provinces. The Commission on Elections has admitted that it overprinted 32,000 sets of these ERs before the elections. It has not explained fully what happened to these excess ERs. Of the approximately 5,000 ERs analyzed, 3,000 were found to be spurious. The vertical tally bars ("taras") used to mark the votes on the ERs were written very neatly and not in the uneven manner when written in the precincts because of stress and haste. There are columns where there are totals of votes but no bars. There are totals that do not tally with the bars. Thumb marks used to close the columns -- so no new bars could be added afterwards-were small, purposely smudged to make identification impossible. Required signatures were missing. Some had only initials instead of signatures. The analysis also alleges that the team gave De Castro an average of a 70-vote margin over Legarda, and Ms Arroyo, a 100-vote margin over Poe. Therefore, the 32,000 sets of overprinted ERs could translate to a vote-margin rate of approximately 2.1 million votes in the Legarda-De Castro vice-presidential contest and around 3 million votes in the Poe-Arroyo presidential race. She played a prominent role and was dubbed the "crying lady" during the impeachment hearings against then Pres. Joseph Estrada, a close friend of Fernando Poe. Her change of parties and alliances have damaged her credibility and divided the opposition spurring rumors that the Lakas party sent her out to divide the opposition.
Personal life
Born Lorna Regina Legarda in Marikina, Rizal. She is the only daughter of Antonio Cabrera Legarda of Manila and San Pablo City, Laguna and of Bessie Gella Bautista of Malabon and Antique.
While working as a broadcast journalist, obtained a master’s degree in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines, where she emerged as topnotcher (NDCP awarded her gold medals for Academic Excellence and Best Thesis) and where she was the youngest in the class. She is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve Corps. She is married to Jose Antonio Leviste, former Batangas provincial governor and a real estate mongul where she has two sons, Lorenzo Antonio and Leandro Antonio.
She is currently a regular host of ABC-5 Real Stories.
External links
- Newsbreak Magazine: Loren's Baggage
- Pinoy Exchange discussion
- Alas: poor Loren
- Beauty and Brains...and Ambition