Noy tells LP: Make Mar win

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino yesterday rallied officials and members of the Liberal Party (LP) to do their best to make Manuel Roxas II win the presidency in the 2016 elections.

Aquino made the pitch for Roxas during the LP convention yesterday at its headquarters in Quezon City, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said.

The LP officially nominated Roxas to be its standard bearer in the 2016 elections, and approved resolutions giving him the authority to select his running mate and members of his senatorial slate.

Roxas turned emotional again as he faced the officials and members of LP.

“He’s (Aquino) confident we’ll have a united effort,” Belmonte told reporters after the convention.

“We have empowered the presidential candidate because what we want actually is a winning team. Teamwork is what we want to emphasize here, teamwork towards the daang matuwid (straight path) policy,” he added.

PNoy hints Mar-Leni tandem sealed

No official announcement came out of yesterday’s meeting of LP’s National Executive Council on the running mate of Roxas, but President Aquino hinted that Roxas’ partnership with Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo is sealed.

Asked when Robredo would decide since she was absent during yesterday’s LP meeting, Aquino said “soon.”

“Leni is undergoing processes. Let us allow Leni to speak next week,” the President added, apparently referring to the planned announcement of the full LP slate on Oct. 5 at Club Filipino in Greenhills.

As far as LP stalwart and Senate President Franklin Drilon is concerned, Robredo remains the chosen one. In a television interview, Drilon said that Robredo would “most likely” be announced as the running mate of Roxas during the LP’s event next Monday.

“Let us just say that Congresswoman Leni Robredo is our candidate for vice president,” Drilon said.

“I would say she has more or less given her consent already or informally and I don’t think she’s keeping us hanging or anything like that. I’m very confident that she will be our vice presidential candidate,” Belmonte told reporters.

Belmonte also said the LP actually has a self-imposed deadline of Oct. 5 to announce the running mate of Roxas and the senatorial slate.

Robredo, however, told reporters that she has not yet made a final decision.

“I apologize to you all because I have no statement to make yet because my family is still processing all these. In fact, this is what I’m asking the party – to give me a chance (to decide),” she told reporters in Filipino.

“This is a crucial matter, it’s not easy to make a decision on this,” she said.

As for the senatorial lineup, the four LP stalwarts – re-electionists Drilon, Sens. Ralph Recto and Teofisto Guingona III along with former presidential assistant for agriculture Francis Pangilinan – were said to be sure of slots.

Others being considered for the senatorial lineup, according to various sources, are Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista, former Akbayan lawmaker Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Filipino boxing champion and Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority director general Joel Villanueva, Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Francis Tolentino, Manila Vice Mayor Isko Moreno, former energy secretary Jericho Petilla, former senator Panfilo Lacson, Las Piñas Rep. Mark Villar of the Nacionalista Party and former Pampanga governor and Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority chief operating officer Mark Lapid.

The President denied Villanueva was no longer being considered and would like to run under the ticket of Sens. Grace Poe and Francis Escudero, independent presidential and vice presidential candidates, because of bickering with De Lima, who charged him with misuse of Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel.

“Those are all intrigues. Definitely he’s with us. But we will just announce everything next week,” Aquino said in an ambush interview after the LP meeting.

‘Binay, don’t think you’ll be cheated’

Meanwhile, Malacañang and Roxas dismissed Vice President Jejomar Binay’s pronouncement that he would launch a “people power” protest in the event that he loses his presidential bid in 2016 due to cheating.

Binay, the presidential candidate of the United Nationalist Alliance, claimed there have been talks that poll fraud would be committed through the precinct count optical scan machines.

He also called for strict implementation of laws on election spending as candidates backed by the Aquino administration have an advantage over their opponents.

“In a word, hubris. Vice President Binay should not consider the people’s decision in 2016 as being cheated if he does not win,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said yesterday.

For Roxas, Binay is just trying to divert attention away from the corruption allegations against him.

“What do we expect from someone who does not face the allegations against him? He will just muddle the discussions and make accusations without proof,” Roxas said on the sidelines of the Liga ng mga Barangay convention in Pasay last Tuesday.

“We do not have any history of doing such things,” he added.

Roxas claimed that he was the victim of poll fraud in 2010 vice presidential elections.

“In fact, I was the one who filed a protest during the previous election because there were two million null votes for the vice president and all of them were in the Visayas. As a victim of cheating, I will fight for a clean, orderly and honest election,” he said.

Binay defeated Roxas during the vice presidential race in 2010 by about 740,000 votes. Roxas questioned the election result, saying it did not reflect actual votes because of “anomalously high incidence” of null and misread votes in the certificates of canvass.

Roxas claimed counting the null votes would have made him overtake Binay.With Alexis Romero, Marvin Sy, Delon Porcalla, Aurea Calica