It’s final: 32 vying for 12 Senate slots

MANILA, Philippines - It’s final: 32 candidates will slug it out for the 12 Senate seats up for grabs in the 2013 polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday.      

“There will be 32 senatorial candidates. We are now signing the resolution (on this),” Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said in an ambush interview.              

The candidates are Juan Edgardo Angara (Laban); Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Maria Ana Consuelo Madrigal and Ramon Magsaysay Jr. (Liberal Party); Alan Peter Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes IV and Cynthia Villar (Nacionalista Party); Risa Hontiveros (Akbayan) and Sen. Aquilino Martin Pimentel III (PDP-Laban), all under the Malacañang-backed LP coalition.         

The candidates of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) are Maria Lourdes “Nancy” Binay, Margarita Cojuangco, Joseph Victor Ejercito, Richard Gordon, Gregorio Honasan, Ernesto Maceda, Maria Milagros Esperanza Magsaysay, Juan Miguel Zubiri and Juan Ponce Enrile Jr. (Nationalist People’s Coalition).                

The LP and UNA have three common candidates – Loren Legarda (NPC) and independent bets Francis Joseph Escudero and Maria Grace Poe-Llamanzares. 

The other senatorial candidates are Greco Antonious Beda Belgica, son of former Manila councilor Butch Belgica; Baldomero Falcone, and Christian Señeres, son of former ambassador Roy Señeres, who are all running under the Democratic Party, the newest political party accredited by the Comelec.             

Ang Kapatiran’s John Carlos de Los Reyes, Marwil Llasos, and Rizalito David; Makabayan’s Teodoro Casiño and Social Justice Society’s Samson Alcantara, are also among the 32 senatorial bets. Meanwhile, the independent candidates are Edward Hagedorn, Ramon Montaño and Ricardo Penson. Brillantes noted that there will be no candidate from the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL).

“Many of them have been withdrawn and those who were left as independent candidates are considered nuisance because they are not known,” he said. 

Founded by the late former President Ferdinand Marcos, KBL is now beset by internal rift among its leaders.