Palace: Aquino has no final choice yet for 2016 presidential bet

President Benigno S. Aquino III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang downplayed on Wednesday a statement by Transportation Secretary Joseph A. Abaya that the Liberal Party would field Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II as its standard bearer in the 2016 polls.

“What Secretary Abaya said, basing on his quote, was his personal opinion primarily because the LP has not started the process,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told a Malacañang briefing.

Abaya, LP acting president, said on Tuesday that Roxas would carry the flag for the party in 2016, and that the party has been holding meetings to push this forward.

Lacierda said the public should instead wait for President Aquino’s endorsement of the LP standard bearer.

“The President already said in one of the ambush interviews that he will announce it at the proper time. Let’s wait for the President’s final, final imprimatur who his choice will be. Let’s just wait for that. We can hear other people saying but it’s not the President,” he said.

But LP member, Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, said the party’s nomination as its standard-bearer was for Roxas’ taking.

“It’s for him to refuse,” Evardone said by phone. “If there will be a vote, hands-down he will win. But it may not reach that stage; it could just be a consensus of the party.”

Without preempting the President, Evardone believed Roxas would get the endorsement of Mr. Aquino.

In an interview with Senate reporters on Tuesday, Abaya said the party has been pushing for Roxas to be its standard-bearer but this would go through the process.

“You know my answer to the question of who will carry the flag for the LP. That’s Secretary Mar Roxas,” Abaya said.

Abaya merely confirmed Senate President Franklin Drilon’s announcement in January 2013 that the party would field Roxas to run for President against Vice President Jejomar Binay who has already announced his intent to run for the presidency.

Roxas went on leave as LP president when he took over the top post at the Department of Interior and Local Government in September 2012 after then Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo died in a plane crash.

Since then, the President has often tapped him as his trouble-shooter in times of calamities, or crises. But in doing so, Roxas ran into several controversies.

He was seen with the President when the latter flew to Zamboanga City in September last year to oversee the military operations to flush out Nur Misuari’s followers that laid siege to seaside villages that left more than 100 dead.

Mr. Aquino sent Roxas and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin to Tacloban City ahead of the landfall of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in November last year.

Roxas and Gazmin took the brunt of criticisms for the national government’s response and relief efforts, which have been described as slow and bungling by some quarters in the aftermath of the most powerful typhoon to hit the country.

Before he could even recover, Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. tagged Roxas as the one who drove him to Malacañang for a breakfast meeting with the President during the impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012.

After breakfast, Revilla said Mr. Aquino appealed to him to vote for the conviction of Corona for nondisclosure of his peso and dollar accounts in his statement of assets, liabilities and networth.

Roxas was recently implicated in the controversy surrounding the alleged removal of detained Delfin Lee from the most wanted persons’ list. He denied any hand in this.

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