There are two Ejercitos vying for a Senate seat this May. Both have been senators, while one is currently seated. Both have tucked behind them long years of experience and both have been principal authors of watershed legislation whose positive impacts on the lives of present-day Filipinos are undeniable.

One authored seminal legislation that eventually freed minimum wage earners from having to pay income taxes. While there are others who stake their claim on this honor, having failed political stunts before ranging from a kitschy televised marriage proposal to challenging the president to fisticuffs, theirs is a campaign claim typical of most political stunts often desperately resorted to as they pander to pathetic tastelessness.

While the law that exempts minimum wage earners from income taxes is an achievement that quickly comes to mind when Jinggoy Estrada’s record comes up, his other achievement is perhaps more substantive where good governance is concerned.

As insidious bribery accusations came to light perpetrated under the Aquino administration against a sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the critical testimony given by Estrada was the most damning proof not only of gross malversation of the inter-departmental Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds but also, where Aquino employed public taxes against his personal nemesis, Aquino’s ploy revealed a president hell-bent on puerile and myopic vindictiveness.

Recall that the late Chief Justice Renato Corona presided over proceedings that negatively impacted on the fraud that victimized farmer beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita — the estate controlled by Aquino’s kin.

Granting that Estrada is now running under the threat of a continuing charge of pork barrel misallocations, the reality of vindictiveness directly connected to the accusations of presidential bribery, Estrada being a leading critic of the Aquino administration, the connection to Hacienda Luisita and his bravery in exposing the criminal DAP must be factored in when considering the impetus of accusations against a former senator who, on record, had done his constituencies a lot of good.

In comparison, JV Ejercito is unburdened by any legal charges.

Joseph Victor, or JV, authored the Kasambahay Law that founded a revolutionary and historic paradigm shift in the treatment of domestics who live with us, with whom we share our homes and private lives and who dedicate their lives to ensuring our homes are shipshape.

Not yet done with laurels and fueled by a constant compunction to help the needy, he likewise, very recently, authored the Universal Health Care Act which a returning Liberal Party (LP) candidate is hijacking and including in his platform given that his latest spins label him an “Ekonomista.”

Since the trapo claiming expertise in economics is from the opposition, in his virtual appropriation of credits for ideas that don’t solely belong to him, there is effectively a tacit and unintended endorsement of JV Ejercito’s advocacy.

Again, as credits are claimed by others bereft of substance whether political or otherwise, the contrast between the Ejercito brothers and their Senate competitors reveal the latter’s intellectual bankruptcy and the hollowness of contrived “Ekonomista” agenda.

As both are the sons of former President Joseph Estrada, both exude their father’s characteristic charm and a deep affinity with their constituencies. None have airs, especially not the stinking malodorous kind that wafts from elitist, pedigreed and branded politicians from the LP currently seeking to resurrect from serial failures.

Indeed, both Ejercito brothers share a profound empathy for the truly needy; thus, unlike fakes seeking to return to the Senate, when the two brothers speak there is immediate rapport as opposed to the falsehood exuded by other Senate returnees.

Between the two brothers, akin to his father’s public persona, JV Ejercito is more the real-life underdog with the deeper empathy for the downtrodden — a unique trait alien to others.