Juan L. Mercado - Mortality As Sterilizer

"The vice-presidency is as useful as a cow's fifth teat," Harry Truman snorted when friends pressed him to seek the post. His initial disdain, before agreeing to run, for the Constitution's "spare-tire" job is widely shared.

Even comedians get into the act. "The vice-presidency is the best job in the country," Will Rogers cracked. "All a vice-president does is to ask, after morning coffee: 'How's the President's health today?"

True--until something inconvenient steps in. Like Death, for example, as Vice-President Truman learned.

The under-employed Numero Dos, was goofing off in the Speaker's lounge when the phone rang. It was urgent the Vice President come, the White House operator said.

Nobody was to be informed. But Truman should use the President's private quarters' entrance.

"Good God," a suddenly pale Truman blurted, his biographer recalls. A waiting Eleanor Roosevelt told him: "The President has just died." Hours later, Truman was sworn in as the 34th US President.

Numero Dos became Numero Ono. Only then was Truman briefed on "Project Manhattan": the top secret race to develop the atomic bomb. Three months later, he ordered nuclear obliteration of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

"The angel of death has many eyes," the Hebrew proverb says. Street cleaner, mayor or President must look into those eyes one day. That should drill, into all, a sense of reality "The threat of mortality, which hangs over all of us', Albert Camus stressed, "sterilizes everything."

Governance is a "7/24" job. Its demands don't halt when illness strikes. Numero Dos can suddenly be thrust in the number one job. So, voters must select them with equal care, as they do the top honcho.

Mortality compels officials: to "think the unthinkable." They must prepare by training those who'd step into their shoes, just in case. "The cemetery is full of indispensable men," Charles de Gaulle once said.

History underscores this lesson repeatedly. Barely 11 months in office, as first president of the Republic, Manuel Roxas succumbed to a heart attack. Vice-president Elipidio Quirino took his oath of office two days later.

"A sovereign people entrusted to this man the high exercise of sovereignty. (Now, he) stands before Him from all sovereignty is derived," historian Horacio de la Costa said at President Roxas funeral. "The final reckoning of what he was... belongs to far keener eyes than ours, yet also beyond measure kindlierâ€¦because justice and mercy are one (in Him)."

In March 1957, Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus cabled Vice-President Carlos Garcia, then in Canberra. President Ramon Magsaysay's plane had crashed in Cebu, "Suggest you fly back immediately".

The more powerful the official, the harder it seems to keep this truth in mind. The current and prolonged scramble by vice-presidential hopefuls is therefore critical.

There's Mar Roxas. He lead the pack in the October Pulse Asia survey at 37 percent.

How much is solid support and how much wedding PR fluff? Malacanang and rivals are not waiting to find out. They're ganging up on Noynoy Aquino and Roxas. That's the team to beat - for now.

We have a sitting vice-president. Wedged into the constitutional line-of-succession is Noli de Castro. Whatever happened to Numero Dos?

Endorsement by the unpopular President Arroyo, he felt was a "kiss of death". So, De Castro shilly-shallied. Vice-presidential doors, meanwhile, slammed shut. He polled a measly 4 percent as presidential candidate in the same survey. His fantasy of being candidate for Numero Ono crumbled.

De Castro finds himself replaying the "Two Brothers Parable" today. "Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea. The other got elected as vice-president. Nothing has been heard from both since."

At 23 percent, Loren Legarda lags behind Roxas. She shimmied down from presidential aspirant to take a second crack at being Numero Dos for Manny Villar. Brainy, good-looking, she has an articulate "green advocacy".

But Loren couldn't bring a dowry to the Nacionalista Party. Her Nationalist People's Coalition hewed to form: NPC will throw it's weight behind whoever financier Danding Cojuangco gauges will win. That bulletproofs Cojunagco's fortunes, including the coconut levy.

Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay polled 13 percent. His presidential partner Joseph Estrada was supposed to give Binay traction nationwide. Mustering only 11 percent, Erap is instead turning out to be a drag.

The slogan "Erap Para Sa Mahirap" doesn't sell anymore. Not when voters wonder if the candidate Binay touts is not Joseph Estrada but "Jose Velarde" of 5K Governance: kamaganak; kumpadre, kakalase, kaibigan - at kabit.

Will Senator "Chiz" Escudero will deal himself in? The betting is the 40-year old has reset target for 2016. But "man is here today," Thomas a Kempis says. "And tomorrow he is gone. And when he is out of sight, he is also out of mind."

"The vice presidency is like the last cookie on the plate," writer Bill Vaughan once said. "Everybody insists he won't take it. But somebody always does."

So, vice-presidential hopeful Edu Manzano agreed to the smallest cookie on the plate: ex-secretary: Gilbert Teodoro. As the outgoing Arroyo's regime's anointed Teodoro nailed down only two percent support so far.