Gordon takes swipe at ‘inexperienced’ 2016 bets

LESS than a year before the 2016 presidential elections, former senator and now Philippine Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon asked voters to evaluate carefully the platforms of the candidates who will run in the 2016 elections.

At the sidelines of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Manila Conference on Migration 2015, Gordon said that voters should look for the candidate’s track record and not his “winnability.”

“Voters have to ask: ‘What is your program? Do you have a track record? Can you prove that? How do you intend to do that?’ Then the candidate will answer. But no, because you people are saying that this candidate will win already. That’s it. That is why we are a sloppy country,” Gordon said.

Meanwhile, the former senator also took a swipe at a possible candidate whom he declined to identify.

“We still have one year. If we really want to change this country…ngayon pa lang we’ll ask you: ‘How can you do that? Do you have a track record?’ So you’re daughter of somebody and you became number one, iyan lang qualifications mo?” Gordon said.

The politician who seems to fit Gordon’s description is neophyte Senator Grace Poe, the daughter of the late Fernando Poe Jr., who won as the number one senator during the 2013 elections under the administration ticket “Team PNOY.”

BACKSTORY: Grace Poe asks: Will LP support me if I run in 2016?

She revealed recently that she is being wooed by President Benigno Aquino III to run for higher office in the 2016 elections under the administration’s Liberal Party.

However, Poe remains mum on her 2016 plans.

Meanwhile, when asked about his plans for 2016, Gordon categorically denied that he would be running for senator.

“I will not be going back to the Senate but they entice me with another position,” he said.

Gordon, who is a one-term senator from 2004 to 2010, ran for president in 2010 and senator in 2013 but lost. AC