She’s claiming victory.
Sen. Nancy Binay on Thursday said she would be reelected and retain the 12th and last spot in the Senate race after all the votes had been counted.
Partial official and unofficial results put Binay in 12th place, a relatively low ranking that she attributed to her lack of political machinery and the negative effect of the Binay family feud on her candidacy.
She ranked fifth in the 2013 midterm elections.
Based on computations by experts she said she had consulted, the “worst case scenario” for her was she would win by about 200,000 votes over the 13th placer, her fellow reelectionist and friend Sen. JV Ejercito.
“I’m no longer worried,” Binay told reporters at a press briefing. “I think today I can claim it. I’m stable at No. 12.”
Even if the remaining votes were added to the final tally, she said, Ejercito could not surmount her huge lead.
Not enough to overtake her
Binay said the experts computed the votes for Ejercito in areas where he was strongest and found that these would not be enough to erase her lead.
But she said she could not celebrate fully because Ejercito was a friend.
“It’s difficult because I cannot celebrate and shout out that I am No. 12 because my friend and ally would not be able to return [to the Senate],” she added.
Binay attributed her relatively low ranking in the elections to her lack of political machinery and low ad spending.
She ran under the United Nationalist Alliance and was not endorsed by the administration parties during the 2019 campaign, she explained.
She also said the feud between her siblings, Makati Mayor Abby Binay and former Mayor Junjun Binay, pulled down public support for her.
Exchange of recriminations
Abby and Junjun slugged it out for the post of mayor in the country’s premier central business district, and their battle culminated in a public, heated exchange of recriminations during a campaign forum.
“I had to divide my time in campaigning because I had to help my brother,” she said.
The fact that she and Abby resembled each other did not help, as people thought she was her sister and asked her why she was feuding with her family.
“People were coming up to me and saying, ‘Ma’am, I saw you on TV. Why are you fighting with your sibling?’” she said. “I had to tell them that was not me.”
Binay said she would remain in the Senate majority in the next Congress as she believed that Senate President Vicente Sotto III would retain his post.
She joined the majority because of Sotto, she added.
Meanwhile, 11th placer Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said he was just glad that he was in the winning circle.
“I do not care about the ranking. If you have a new mandate, that means you have to work again,” Pimentel told reporters in a phone interview.
“As long as I survived, I’m happy about it,” he added.