Estrada to support Binay even if Grace Poe makes a run for presidency

Former President and now Mayor-elect Joseph Estrada. File photo

MANILA, Philippines—Grace Poe for president?

“Why not?” her godfather, former President Joseph Estrada, said Wednesday, welcoming a possibility that surfaced after Poe topped this year’s senatorial election.

But Estrada, now the mayor-elect of Manila, made it clear that he would still throw his support behind Vice President Jejomar Binay, who had long expressed his desire to run for president in 2016.

“I’m 100 percent for Binay,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.

“It’s enough that we’ve had two women presidents,” he added, referring to the late President Corazon Aquino and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The name of Poe, daughter of the late action star Fernando Poe Jr., was floated in the absence of a possible administration standard-bearer other than Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II.

In 2010 vice presidential race, Binay narrowly outpointed Roxas, the survey frontrunner. The presidential derby three years from now was widely expected to be a faceoff between the two officials — until Poe was thrown into the picture.

“It’s difficult to make predictions this early. Who would have thought that Grace would top the senatorial election?” Estrada said.

Estrada said Poe was “highly qualified,” noting that she earned a degree in political science at Boston College. She also headed the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.

As for Binay’s running mate in 2016, Estrada said there was no assurance that his son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, would be picked.

“There has been no discussion about that. It’s still too early. A lot of things can still happen between now and 2016,” he said.

Other possible vice presidential candidates include Senators Loren Legarda, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Francis Escudero, said Estrada.

Estrada recalled that he had picked Binay to be his running mate in 2010 only a week before the filing of certificates of candidacy.

Binay, then Makati City mayor, got the call after Estrada failed to convince Escudero.

“Twice he told me, ‘It’s president or nothing.’ So he got nothing,” Estrada said, referring to his conversations with Escudero.