Binay announces 2016 plans to Maguindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Vice President Jejomar Binay on Sunday told local Moro, Christian and lumad folks he will definitely run for president in 2016.

Binay reaffirmed his bid for the presidency after inaugurating two projects in the province and a series of brief impromptu dialogues with local officials and senior members of the ethnic Maguindanaon royalty.

Binay and his entourage also dropped by dxMS in Cotabato City, Central Mindanao's oldest Catholic radio outfit run by the Oblate missionaries. While at the station, the vice president announced he would definitely aspire for the presidency during the 2016 presidential elections.

"I have already announced immediately after my election as vice president in 2010 that I will run for president in 2016. I really will," Binay said while inside the broadcast booth of dxMS.

Binay expressed support to peaceful efforts of resolving the Mindanao Moro issue.

Maguindanao, which has 36 towns, all bastions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is a political bailiwick of the Liberal Party, whose provincial figurehead, Governor Esmael Mangudadatu, is also a scion of a large Moro royal clan in the "raya" area (upper delta) of the province.

Former Tarlac Governor Margarita "Ting-Ting" Cojuangco and Valenzuela City Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian accompanied Binay as he toured Datu Odin Sinsuat town and Cotabato City amid tight security provided by the provincial police office and the Army's 6th Infantry Division.

Along with Maguindanao Vice Governor Lester Sinsuat and the municipality's chief executive, Mayor Ombra Sinsuat, Binay led the launching of a newly-constructed "senior citizens building" to be utilized as a welfare facet for elderly folks in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

The building was bankrolled by Binay's office and the local government of Datu Odin Sinsuat, the largest town in the first district of Maguindanao.

Binay, whose office contributed P500,000 for the construction of the building, said it is important for public officials to attend to needs of their elderly constituents.

Binay also led the inauguration of a multi-media center at the graduate school of the Mindanao State University in Tamontaka District in the northeast of Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Binay talked briefly with traditional Moro leaders, among them Datu Bimbo Sinsuat, who had served as assemblyman in the ARMM's 24-seat Regional Legislative Assembly for nine years, and Datu Tucao Mastura, former mayor of Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao, who both attended the symbolic launching of the two newly-completed projects.

The vice president also met with Cotabato City-based peace activist and priest Eliseo Mercado Jr, executive director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance, a partner outfit of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of Germany.

Mercado, who is involved in various projects complementing the Mindanao peace process, is a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the congregation of Orlando Cardinal Quevedo.

Binay also visited Quevedo's pastoral residence, the Bishop's Palace in Cotabato City.