Palace respects Binay plan to tap Pangilinan for VP

Manuel V. Pangilinan and Vice President Jejomar Binay INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang has nothing much to say about Vice President Jejomar Binay’s plan to tap businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan as his running mate in 2016, except that it respects his decision.

“Iginagalang po natin ang kanyang pahayag at posisyon hinggil diyan (We respect his statement and position regarding that),” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said of the report during an interview Sunday over state-run radio.

Binay, during an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer last week, said he had been asking Pangilinan to run as vice president during the next elections.

He said he wanted Pangilinan as his running mate because of his track record in business.

While Binay has made public his decision to run for president in the 2016 elections, President Benigno Aquino III has yet to announce who he wants as his successor, though many believe it is going to be Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II who was his running mate in 2010.

The Liberal Party has also been accused of pushing for Aquino’s term extension because of its “shallow bench” since Roxas has not been doing well in electoral surveys.

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