The surprise political package last week was Edu Manzano, who joined Gilbert Teodoro’s quest in next year’s race. Gibo, the most underrated of the four major presidential candidates, needed a really good running mate and Edu— who had been rating well in all senatorial surveys —may give the former defense secretary some of the traction he needs to really get going.

From Edu himself, we learn that he had been meeting with administration stalwarts who wanted to draft him as Teodoro’s running mate for the past two months. In fact, the lead negotiator and the man whom Manzano says convinced him to run for vice president was Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno —the man who had earlier announced that he would gladly become Teodoro’s running mate.

At least Puno realized that, for all his vaunted skills as a political operator, he would probably be only of marginal help to Teodoro as far as mass appeal to the electorate is concerned. Puno’s role in arranging the Gibo-Edu tandem can be clearly gauged from the pictures and video taken during Manzano’s announcement—he’s the one holding up the hands of the administration’s bets, after all.

Now, only one of the four wannabes still hasn’t picked a vice presidential bet—Senator Manny Villar. And now that Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos and her hubby Ralph Recto have announced that they are joining Noynoy Aquino’s Liberal Party, Villar’s choices seem to have narrowed down significantly.

Prior to yesterday’s announcement by the Recto couple, Vilma’s name had been tossed around as a “winnable” vice presidential candidate. Now that the governor and her husband, the former economic planning secretary of the Arroyo government, have left the administration coalition to join Aquino, that rumor has been effectively squelched.

(Few saw that the administration would tap Edu instead of Vilma, probably after the latter declined. That Edu and Vilma were also once a couple is either coincidence or proof that Lakas was itself running out of real choices as far as drafting a partner for Teodoro was concerned.)

For Villar, the real remaining choices are opposition Senators Loren Legarda and Francis “Chiz” Escudero. And unless Villar’s camp is cooking up a surprise of its own, it looks as if Legarda has the inside track right now.

The results of the latest Pulse Asia survey further strengthens the possibility of Legarda eventually becoming Villar’s running mate. While it is unfortunate that Escudero was not included in the list of vice presidential candidates in that poll—he was among the choices in the presidential race, where he tracked a creditable third among eight bets, with 13 percent—the senator from Sorsogon has repeatedly said in public that he doesn’t really want to play second fiddle to Villar, citing the Senate’s still-unfinished investigation of the alleged C-5 scandal.

The highlight of the latest vice presidential poll, of course, is Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party establishing himself as the frontrunner, with 37 percent. But Legarda, while behind Roxas in second place with 23 percent, actually rose in the standings, gaining four more percentage points in the last Pulse Asia survey, getting the additional “votes” mainly from the fast-fading Noli de Castro.

Like I’ve said before, the vice presidential contest next year promises to be at least as compelling as the race for the highest post in the land. While the second position has traditionally been considered a minor one, it has gained a lot more significance in recent years, ever since Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took over from President Joseph Estrada.

As for Manzano, he isn’t on the survey, either, since he only announced that he was running with Teodoro last week. But he tracked 15th in the senatorial race, getting the approval of 24 percent of the respondents.

Will the former vice mayor of Makati and current game-show host hold his own against the others vying for the number two spot, an elite list which includes his former mayor and tormentor, Jejomar Binay? Teodoro and the administration coalition certainly hope so, but only succeeding opinion polls—and the voters themselves, with finality, on election day—will be the judge of that.

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Still on the vice presidential race, we’ve also heard rumors that Escudero intends to get even with his former Nationalist People’s Coalition partymate Legarda by running for the second-highest post as an independent. The supposed strategy is to take votes from Legarda, assuming she is taken in by Villar, since that would split the opposition vote.

But that’s really a far-fetched scenario, given that, of the four likely tickets, three are made up of oppositionists. If Escudero decides to spoil Loren’s chances by running by his lonesome, he would also be presumably taking away votes from Roxas and Binay, as well.

The most reasonable option for Escudero remains not running altogether next year, assuming that he doesn’t team up with Villar. He still has three years in the Senate, after all, and he can use that time to assure people that he hasn’t really ruined his chances of moving up in the future after that ill-conceived press conference where he announced that he was quitting the NPC and—like many are convinced—lashing out at leaders of his party who wouldn’t back him for the presidency.

That assumption, of course, is premised on the theory that Villar will choose Legarda, which is still not a done deal at this point. Villar has so far kept his cards close to his chest and has refused to telegraph his choice of a running mate.

As unlikely as it may seem right now for those of us who are not in on the negotiations, Escudero probably still has a chance of running with the NP. Yes, he’s criticized Villar in the past and has practically disowned the politics of money and machinery; but this is Philippine politics, where anything— and any combination—can happen.

Villar’s camp insists that the senator is following his own timetable for picking a running mate and will not be rushed into deciding based on the shifting sands of public opinion. That may be so, but it could also be true that he’s having a difficult time choosing, and not necessarily between Escudero and Legarda to the exclusion of everyone else.

In any case, the matter ought to be settled pretty soon, like the epic battle between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto. Regardless of how it turns out, the vice presidential battle just got a little more exciting with the entry of Manzano, that’s for sure.