MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Manuel Roxas II, who skipped the proclamation of the winners in the races for president and vice president, showed up at the Aquino residence on Times Street yesterday but declined to issue a statement.
Roxas did not attend the proclamation of president-elect Benigno Aquino III and vice president-elect Jejomar Binay last Wednesday. Roxas, who lost to Binay by about 700,000 votes, had announced that he was studying the possibility of filing an electoral protest.
Yesterday at Times Street, Roxas declined to be interviewed, saying he did not want to steal the limelight from Aquino by talking about his protest.
“The right time for me to talk will come. I hope you understand. Let us all celebrate first the victory of Noynoy,” he said.
Roxas was in a casual polo shirt and slacks when he met with Aquino, who also changed into a black polo shirt after meeting the Australian ambassador in his barong Tagalog.
Roxas said his lawyers were studying the possibility of filing a protest because there were more than three millions votes that were not counted, including 2.6 million null votes.
His lawyer Joey Tenefrancia said Roxas was not rushing things and that he would be consulting with his supporters, family and friends as regards his next move. Roxas has 30 days to decide on his protest.
Roxas said he would first like to share the joy of Aquino’s victory and ensure that he was already installed before taking any action for himself.
Aquino said Roxas was out of town during his proclamation but he sent him text messages.
“We may set other meetings in the future. But I plan to give him some space and when he is ready to start discussing certain party matters and other issues of course he will have access, unlimited access, to me,” Aquino said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Aquino had said he was ready to appoint Roxas to a position once the one-year ban on appointing candidates who ran in the election had lapsed.
“He has to do a lot of soul searching and as a friend, I would give him the necessary space to come to terms with everything, to understand everything after going through so much. I would be supportive of what ever he wants. I really believe that we had and still have a good working partnership, that our views are the same and that can be a significant contributor toward achieving our dreams,” Aquino said.