Roxas still open to running for Senate next year

MANILA, Philippines — Losing presidential candidate Mar Roxas is still open to a possible Senate run in the 2019 midterm elections.

“I think any Filipino who is called to serve is open (to run for public office),” Roxas said yesterday in an interview with BISErbisyong Leni, a radio program co-hosted by Vice President Leni Robredo over radio station dzXL.

Roxas was Robredo’s runningmate in the May 2016 polls.

The former secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, however, was not among the probable winners in the 2019 senatorial race based on the June 2018 survey of Pulse Asia.

Roxas ranked 14th to 21st places, with a voting preference of 27.1 percent in the Pulse Asia poll taken from June 15 to 21.

Robredo told Roxas there are many people who are convincing him to run again for senator. 

“Let’s not join public office just only for ego trip or for a wrong motivation. We should serve wholeheartedly because it’s really hard to be a public servant,” Roxas told Robredo and co-anchor broadcaster Ely Saludar.

“If your motivation is not pure, you might take the wrong path,” Roxas said.

“I don’t mean to be moralizing or lecturing, I’m sorry, but this is a sincere answer. As I discern, I want to know the reason why I’m doing that,” the former Liberal Party (LP) president and standard-bearer said.

LP has yet to release the shortlist of its senatorial bets for the 2019 midterm elections.

Re-electionist Sen. Bam Aquino will lead LP’s senatorial slate, dubbed as “The Resistance” group.