Kapunan joins Grace-Chiz Senate slate

MANILA, Philippines - Saying she did not want to be an apologist of the Aquino administration, lawyer Lorna Kapunan has joined the Senate slate of independent presidential bet Sen. Grace Poe and her running mate Sen. Francis Escudero for the 2016 presidential elections.

Prior to her formal proclamation as senatorial candidate of Aksyon Demokratiko, Kapunan said she decided to join the senatorial slate of Poe and Escudero and not the Liberal Party because she opposes many of the administration’s causes.

“I think to run with the administration is to be an apologist for the administration,” she said in an interview with ABS-CBN’s Umagang Kay Ganda.

Kapunan revealed that she was included in the shortlist of prospective senatorial bets of LP but she declined the offer.

“On the day they made the announcement, I said, I cannot run with the party in conscience if I disagree with certain principles,” Kapunan added.

Kapunan expressed confidence that she could win a Senate seat on the basis of her stand on various issues.

The celebrity lawyer is the third senatorial candidate to openly join the Poe-Escudero team, after Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares and Manila Vice Mayor Isko Moreno.

Interviewed in a provincial sortie yesterday, Escudero said their team’s 12-member senatorial slate will be formally announced next Monday.

Poe and Escudero cancelled the announcement of their senatorial slate out of sympathy for the victims of Typhoon Lando last week.

“She’s the one who talked with them. I will leave it to her to announce who are the 12 candidates that will be included in the lineup,” said Escudero, who met with youth groups in Leyte recently to discuss their platforms.

Meanwhile, Poe thanked thousands of supporters during her campaign yesterday in Virac, Catanduanes.

Poe urged her supporters to continue the fight for every foundling in the country as well as for the poor.

“I believed that the people must be consulted on the solution they want to offer for their problems,” said Poe.

“I am doing this because I believe that all the people must be consulted to plan their future,” said Poe.

Despite various moves to disqualify Poe, her supporters from the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) do not believe she will be disqualified.

“She knows that all these are political harassment and I know she can surmount all of these,” said Catanduanes Vice Gov. Jose Teves Jr.

Teves, the NPC bet for Catanduanes governor in the 2016 polls, wished the party will finally endorse Poe.

Escudero said their tandem would remain independent.

Poe told participants that she wants to help make Catanduanes a safe ecotourism haven in the country.

Despite being called “The Land of the Howling Winds” due to the frequency of typhoons that lash the island facing the Pacific Ocean, she said the people continue to protect their environment.

“Catanduanes is still green and a beautiful place to visit,” she said. – With Celso Amo