‘Binay proves vote-getting branch should now be sole UNA leader’—Osmeña

Senator Sergio Osmeña III shows a list of the 14 bridges under the alleged anomalous “President’s Bridges Program” of the past administration that cost P111 billion over 11 years. PHOTO/MATIKAS SANTOS, INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—The writing on the wall is clear: Vice President Jejomar Binay is the one, true king of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) and should now take leadership.

“Jojo (Binay) has been deferring a lot to the two other partners (Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada) in his coalition. He should take the sole leadership at this time,” said Sen. Sergio Osmeña III.  “The Three Kings image was not effective except media kept on playing it up and placed Jojo in a corner.”

Binay’s daughter, a housewife who was running purely on the family name, had a solid showing while Estrada’s son, San Juan Rep. Joseph Victor Ejercito, barely made it to the Top 12 and Enrile’s son, Cagayan Rep. Jack Enrile, has been losing badly.

Osmeña was not suggesting that Binay ditch Estrada and his other allies. “He will always want, need and deserve the support of President Erap,” said Osmeña.

Sen. Vicente Sotto III said that Binay should “rethink” the coalition and make it his own team going into the 2016 elections where he has set his sights on the presidency.

Sotto said that Binay proved that he was a good vote-getter. His daughter, Nancy, placed a strong fifth in the tightly fought race despite being lambasted in traditional and social media for her lack of experience and aversion to public debates.

Although Team PNoy was likely to end up with nine winners to UNA’s 3, Sotto still considered the Senate race a dead heat as he pointed out that Grace Poe and Senators Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero were originally endorsed by UNA (This was the reason why the 3 were dubbed ‘common candidates’ until Team PNoy put its foot down and made them junk UNA). Also, Binay bested President Aquino in their head-to-head battle as Nancy ranked two seats ahead of the President’s cousin, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV.

Osmeña warned against “reading gratuitous signals from results using wrong assumptions.”

“The clear signals I see from the results of the elections are: the senators are generally elected as individuals, not as part of a group. But the endorsement of PNoy brought in one or two more senator candidates because of the broad support of the Filipino people for his program of reforms. But this is not a harbinger of the 2016 elections. Between UNA and Team PNoy, the issues were not joined. PNoy won but Binay did not lose,” said Osmeña.