Is Sen. Grace Poe a threat to the presidential bets of the two leading parties in 2016?
Two lawmakers in the House of Representatives do not think so, each of them representing one way or the other the two competing parties in the next presidential elections.
Sen. Grace Poe. RAFFY LERMA/INQUIRER PHOTO
In a press conference on Tuesday, Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo of President Benigno Aquino III’s Liberal Party (LP) said he believed Poe may be a potential president someday.
“I honestly think she can be a great president someday,” Quimbo said.
Pressed if this meant Poe may run as president anytime but not in 2016, Quimbo smiled and repeated, “Someday.”
Poe saw her place close in on the ranking of Vice President Jejomar Binay, who remained in the lead in the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) presidential poll. While Binay led with 36 percent in March (from 37 percent last December), Poe closed in at 31 percent (from 21 percent).
READ: Grace Poe closes in on Jojo Binay in latest SWS presidential poll
Quimbo acknowledged that the increasing ratings of Poe, the adopted daughter of late action star Fernando Poe Jr., was helpful to the Liberal Party because she was an ally. Poe ran as guest candidate of the senatorial ticket of the Liberal Party alliance, or Team PNoy, in 2013.
But he has never seen Poe as a threat to the party’s presumptive bet in 2016, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.
Roxas did not fare well in the latest SWS survey, shedding four percentage points to 15 percent from 19 percent. Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who surged from five percent to 15 percent, even tied with Roxas in the survey.
“We’ve never looked at her as a threat. Habang tumataas ang ratings niya, mas nakakabuti sa amin because she’s always been an ally and supportive to the party,” Quimbo said.
For his part, Valenzuela Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) said Poe was not a threat, but she certainly had potential.
“I don’t think (she’s a threat). Threat is a negative word. I think she (has) potential,” Gatchalian said in the same press conference.
Gatchalian ran as congressman under the NPC, which allied with the Liberal Party in the Valenzuela race in 2013. But he has been and continues to be eyed as a senatorial bet of Vice President Binay under his party the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). Gatchalian, then a Valenzuela mayor, was even appointed UNA campaign manager for the 2013 elections.
Gatchalian said while he was being eyed as an UNA candidate, he remained to be under NPC.
Gatchalian said the NPC had not yet decided if it would support Binay next year even if he would run as senator under the Vice President’s party.
“For sure, it is important for the party to listen to its members first,” Gatchalian said in Filipino. RC