Senate President and vice presidential candidate Vicente “Tito” Sotto III (Photo from Lacson-Sotto media bureau)
CEBU CITY – Senate president and vice presidential candidate Vicente “Tito” Sotto III is not keen on “unity talks” if the sole purpose is to defeat particular candidates.
“That is not my mentality. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth,” said Sotto when he visited Cebu with running mate and presidential candidate Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson last Thursday.
Sotto said the unity talks among presidential and vice presidential candidates have been “on the table” for weeks but the reasons for these were not parallel with his purpose in running for vice president.
“We (Sotto and Lacson) are running and offering ourselves for the 2022 elections because we have a program and platform and vision on how the country should move on. We are not running against anyone.”
Lacson and Sotto were in Argao, Cebu where they held a town hall meeting with residents last Wednesday.
On Thursday, Sotto stayed in Cebu City while Lacson proceeded to Bogo City.
In Cebu City, Sotto visited the Cebu Normal University (CNU) and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) to check the implementation of the Medical Scholarship Law which he authored in the Senate.
Sotto said he was satisfied with the progress of the medical program with over 30 students as a pioneering batch at CNU. These students will be using the VSMMC as their laboratory hospital.
From CNU, Sotto went to the VSMMC, a regional hospital named after his grandfather and namesake, where he promised to look for P10 million fund to repair the damage in the facility due to Typhoon Odette.
Sotto said he and Lacson were unaffected by the recent survey results that showed the latter lagging behind other candidates.
Lacson was fifth in the rankings while Sotto was second among the contenders for vice president, according to the Pulse Asia survey which was made public on Wednesday, April 6.
Sotto said the survey results are surprising since it is different from what they see on the ground.
“There is a different swell on the ground. I see and hear other feedback,” he said.
Analysts also told them that in the 2022 elections, there is a large and rare number of “silent majority” that refuse to tell who they are rooting for in the upcoming elections.
“I believe in surveys but if it does not reflect what I see, I will just take it with a grain of salt. The best word would be—apprehensive—of what I see in the (survey) figures,” said Sotto.
He believed that there should be legislation on regulating the public release of election surveys.
“If it is their right to do so, okay. But if it somehow disrupts the thinking of some people, then that is a different story.”
If it’s a commissioned election survey, Sotto suggested that the same should be kept internal.