Raising Subic Bay, now a premier economic zone, is no ordinary feat
transcending nature's whims and
transcending the Filipino's non-pariticipative nature.
Gordon literally raised Subic Bay from tons of ashes caused by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. If you don't know what kind of hell that is, try watching "Dante's Inferno". I think some of those shots even came from the Pinatubo incident. Even the mighty American military was helpless against the volcano and just left "summarily". Pinatubo affected on a major scale their 2 mightiest military bases in Southeast Asia.
This did not deter Gordon! Organizing a sea of volunteers, he raised Subic Bay. That is a much harder people's power conjuring ordinarily non-participative Filipinos to make things happen totally out of unpaid volunteerism on a sustained scale (years of unpaid hardwork)! Definitely not a NATO feat, no action talk only.
Is he a hero? My personal opinion is YES!
Subic Bay is up again and Richard Gordon has gone on to become tourism secretary and then senator. He authored the full automation of the 2010 elections, another gargantuan feat, by any means, considering traditional elections penchance for cheating and manipulating the election results. Passing that law, I presume, is as hard as passing this constitutional amendment thing, which Gordon apparently does not support.
Thanks to the last presidential leadership debate over ANC, I realized how intelligent this guy is: quick and lucid thinker, speaks quite well, and comes from a family who have totally offered themselves to public service. His father, a former mayor of Olongapo City too like him, was assasinated by scoundrels.
What is striking about Gordon is that he apparently has not enriched himself in power at all, while politicians of his stature would have treated their position as a strategic leverage for kleptocracy. Even when he was mayor of Olongapo City and the Americans are still in Subic, he seemed to have not enriched himself. The Americans would have indulged him as it is widely perceived that they allegedly indulged Marcos with Reagan then quipping: "He [Marcos] may be a son of a bitch but he is our son of a bitch..."
Is Gordon really opposition, looks like he is neutral. He is probably a statesman par excellance.
If Americans have a say in Philippine presidential elections, it is most likely that they would be inclined for Gordon.
Is he presidential timber? A most definite yes. Will he make the Philippines prosper? Probably Yes, biased towards unqualified yes.