Robredo's VP bid: Leni's no Cory but...

LENI Robredo is racing for the post of vice president against five men, all senators and political veterans: Gringo Honasan, Chiz Escudero, Antonio Trillanes IV, Bongbong Marcos and Alan Peter Cayetano.

A lawyer and neophyte congresswoman, Leni banks largely on the political capital of her husband Jesse Robredo, secretary of interior & local government, who died in a plane crash in 2012.

She's not the youngest: 52 next April 23. Younger than Leni are Trillanes, 44; Cayetano, 45; and Chiz, 46. Older than Leni are Bongbong, 58; and Honasan, 67.

Age may be irrelevant, especially if the president is so physically fit the VP won't have to ask daily about his chief's health.

Leni is schooled in economics (U.P. Diliman) and law (University of Nueva Caceres). Chiz and Alan Peter are also lawyers. Bongbong is not and his being a graduate of philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and an MBA grad at Wharton has been questioned. Gringo and Trillanes are both PMA products and experienced in, among other skills, plotting coups.

All five have seen many political battles. Chiz: congressman for nine years, third-term senator. Honasan is on his fourth term as senator. Bongbong was governor, two-term congressman and has been senator since 2010. Trillanes has served the Senate since 2007. Cayetano has been in elective posts since 1992, from councilor to vice mayor to congressman, then senator.

Unlike Leni, her rivals have been exposed on the national stage much longer.

No Cory

And she's no Cory. Widows and their kin wouldn't wish depths of personal tragedy plumbed and compared. Measure instead the crises that each had faced.

But Leni surpasses her foes on at least one aspect: a "purity" which to naughty critics may be "unblemished by accomplishment" but to many voters might enable her to provide the fresh air they need in the heavily polluted political landscape.