President Benigno S. Aquino III raises the hands of Team PNoy during the Miting de Avance of the Liberal Party (LP) – Quezon City Chapter at the Amoranto Sports Complex in Barangay Paligsahan, Quezon City on Friday (May 10, 2013). Team PNoy includes Aurora Lone District Representative Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara, former National Youth Commission (NYC) chairperson Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV, former Akbayan Partylist Representative Ana Theresia “Risa” Hontiveros-Baraquel, Senators Alan Peter “Compañero” Cayetano and Francis Joseph “Chiz” Escudero, former Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) chairperson Mary Grace Poe-Llamanzares, Senator Loren Legarda, former Senators Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal and Ramon Magsaysay, Jr., Senators Aquilino Martin “Koko” Pimentel III and Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV, and former Las Piñas Representative Cynthia Villar. (Photo by: Jay Morales/ Malacañang Photo Bureau).
MANILA (Mabuhay) – Two more candidates could be throwing their hats in the ring for the 2016 elections.
Senator Grace Poe on Wednesday said she is open to running alongside her good friend, Senator Francis Escudero, in the next election.
Poe, daughter of the late actor and presidential bet Fernando Poe Jnr, remained mum on who will run for the presidency. She added that even Escudero has yet to finalize his plans.
She also said though she welcomes opinions that she should run for higher office, she feels she still has a lot to prove as a senator.
“Di ba mas bagay kami magkakampi kesa magkalaban? Siempre whatever his decision, di ba? He helped me a lot also to win as Senator Serge (Osmeña). So definitely this is something we need to talk about. He might say mas senior ako sa iyo so that would be a consideration. Anyway, I don’t really know wala pa naman daw siya plano,” she said.
Poe declined to say if she is willing to be the vice-presidential candidate of presidential contender Jejomar Binay.
She clarified she has not been contacted by the camp of Binay, who is with the United Nationalist Alliance.
“We haven’t spoken…My mom says: ‘Just prepare. Know everything you need to know about the government, not for anything, not because you are running for President but because that’s your responsibility and just in case fate puts you there you won’t be caught in the middle of knowing nothing,” she said.
A recent Pulse Asia survey earlier ranked Poe second among the top “preferred presidential” candidates for 2016.
The survey, a copy of which was obtained by ABS-CBN News, was conducted last March 19 to 26, 2014 among 1,200 respondents all over the country.
The respondents were shown a prepared list of names and asked: “Of the people in this list, whom would you vote for if the 2016 presidential elections were held today and they were candidates?”
Topping the survey was Vice President Jejomar Binay, who has long declared his plan to run in 2016, with 40 percent or 4 out of 10 respondents saying they would vote for him.
Poe, a neophyte senator, came in second with 15 percent.
A former chairperson of the MTRCB, Poe topped the 2013 senatorial elections – her first try at an elective post. (MNS)
