CABANATUAN CITY, Philippines—Senatorial candidate Nancy Binay continued to refuse to debate with Team PNoy’s Risa Hontiveros, but she gave the struggling candidate a tip to improve her popularity rating in surveys: Hold more motorcades.
Binay, sought for comment on Hontiveros’ open letter in which the Akbayan party-list leader reiterated her challenge to debate, said she no longer had time to do so and has found motorcades and reaching out to people face to face more effective.
“There are only a few days left and soon, we will know who will win and become senator,” Binay said in an interview.
“If we win, Senator Risa and I can debate every day in the Senate,” she added.
Asked for any advice she could give to Hontiveros, she said the Team Pnoy candidate could hold more motorcades.
“My advice is maybe she could hold motorcades. I think one reason that I have risen in surveys is how we hold motorcades starting from sunrise,” she said.
Binay also denied that she has not been attending any forum. She said she was present at a dzRH forum and a show with broadcaster Mike Enriquez.
She has also been open to interviews.
“You talk to me every day, so it’s not true I don’t grant interviews,” she told reporters.
Binay, the Vice President’s eldest daughter, who has served as his personal assistant, has been criticized for running for the Senate despite not having held any elective post or any position in the bureaucracy.
She has been accused of banking solely on her father’s name and prominence to win a seat in the Senate.
But Binay insisted that working as her father’s assistant gave her the much-needed training at governance and gave her a front-seat view of all the problems in the country.