Erap files COC for Manila mayor

MANILA, Philippines - Former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, accompanied by hundreds of his supporters, filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) yesterday at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office in Arroceros. 

Estrada was the eighth candidate seeking the city’s top post since the start of filing of COCs on Monday.

Aside from Estrada, also running for mayor are 5th District Rep. Amado Bagatsing, former mayor Alfredo Lim, Eduardo del Pilar, Francisco Roblado Pizzara, Reloj Valeriano, Tranquilino Marca and Arnaldo de la Cruz.

Estrada and his supporters gathered at the Bonifacio Monument in Lawton at around 10:30 a.m. before proceeding to the Comelec office together with his running mate Honey Lacuna.

Estrada said he needs another term to finish the programs he has started in Manila and to pay the city government’s P5-billion debt left by Lim.

“The people of Manila want me to continue serving,” he said.

Earlier, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who is running for vice president, said he received information about the possibility of Estrada replacing Binay as the standard bearer of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) in the 2016 elections amid the plunder case filed against the latter.

Trillanes disclosed that Binay may step down from office before Dec. 10 and withdraw his candidacy for president.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said that under the rules, a substitute candidate must come from the same party of the one being replaced.

Binay and Estrada are founders of UNA.     

VP won’t back out

The Vice President’s camp dismissed Trillanes’ claim that he would back out from the presidential race and will be replaced by Estrada.

“Who said that? Senator one percent? That’s far from the truth,” Rico Quicho, Binay’s spokesman for political affairs, said.

Quicho said the senator should better focus on how he would improve his ratings in surveys instead of criticizing other people. – Jose Rodel Clapano, Sheila Crisostomo, Helen Flores