Garin on admin’s Senate slate: Baka kuryente? No final lineup yet

Janette Garin
—INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Whoever released an information that the administration has finalized its Senate slate for the 2025 midterm polls must have been fed the wrong information, Deputy Majority Leader and Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin said.

Garin, in a press briefing at the Batasang Pambansa on Wednesday, echoed the statements of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) calling a reported 12-person Senate slate as unofficial.

“Based on our understanding, the talks have not been finalized.  Yes, there were discussions among political party leaders and names were recommended and put forward, but this is just the first step,” Garin, who is from political party Lakas-CMD, said.

“The next step will be consultations among members, officers of various political parties and the decision will rest on what the majority believes and, of course, the clearance from our President and leaders of political parties,” she added.

Lakas-CMD, headed by Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, is one of the four parties that have formally aligned with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s PFP.

According to Garin, the person who leaked that information may have been “electrocuted” or “nakuryente” — a term in media where wrong information is fed to reporters.

“In other words, baka kuryente yung lumabas kasi sa pagkakaalam namin ay wala namang final pa na napag-usapan,” Garin stressed.

(In other words, she might have been electrocuted because as far as we know nothing final has been discussed.)

PFP president and South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr. previously said that the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas still does not have an official line-up.

READ: No official 2025 admin Senate slate yet – PFP 

In a statement on Tuesday night, Tamayo said that different parties aligned with the PFP were only asked to submit their Senate bets from within their groups during the meeting at Malacañang.

The PFP official said the official line-up would only be named come September 15.

Tamayo did not specify what report showed a 12-person slate, but reports from different media outfits showed Senator Imee Marcos name-dropping the administration’s supposed Magic 12 for the 2025 midterm elections.

Marcos said this was supposedly the topic of a meeting in Malacañang last Monday night.

READ: ‘Unity pa rin’: Party leaders meet at Malacañang for 2025 strategy 

Camarines Sur 2nd District Rep. LRay Villafuerte also named seven members of the groups within the alliance, but he said this will still be up for the approval and consensus of all political parties.

Villafuerte heads the National Unity Party (NUP), while Senator Marcos hails from the Nacionalista Party (NP) — two groups that signed agreements with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s PFP.

READ: 7 members of groups in Bagong Pilipinas alliance eyed as Senate bets

Aside from these and Lakas CMD, PFP also signed a coalition agreement with the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) headed by former Senate president Vicente Sotto III.

The seven names being floated, according to Villafuerte, are the following:

• former Senate President Sotto (NPC)
• Deputy Speaker Camille Villar (NP)
• Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla (Lakas-CMD)
• Senator Marcos (NP)
• Senator Pia Cayetano (NP)
• Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. (PFP)
• Senator Francis Tolentino (PFP)

– With reports from Arianne Denisse Cagsawa, trainee