Binay: No backing out of presidential race

Vice President Jejomar Binay INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

His loss of the lead in the presidential polls is not making Vice President Jejomar Binay reconsider his bid for Malacañang in next year’s elections.

His fall to second place is just a temporary setback and he is undaunted, his daughter Sen. Nancy Binay said on Saturday.

The Vice President, who held the lead in the polls for nine months, was overtaken by the increasingly popular Sen. Grace Poe in the latest Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations (SWS) voter preference surveys.

The Pulse Asia survey results released on Thursday showed Poe leading Binay, 30 percent to 22 percent, and the SWS poll results released on Friday confirmed Poe’s capture of the lead, 42 percent to 34 percent.

It was some consolation to Binay, however, that Poe was not a declared candidate, not for President, not for Vice President.

Even if she were, the Vice President’s loss of the lead was not fatal, as the poll results showed he still had substantial voter support, according to Senator Binay.

“Now, it appears from the different results that he still has a core [support] at 20 percent. It appears that no matter how they try to besmirch his name, that 20 percent remains,” she said.

She was referring to allegations of corruption against her father that a Senate blue ribbon subcommittee is investigating and plunder and graft charges that have been brought against him in the Office of the Ombudsman.

The scandal caused by those charges eroded the Vice President’s voter support and his fall from the top in the polls did not come as a surprise, Senator Binay said.

No backing out

But “there is no backing out,” she said.

“This fight is not just the fight of Vice President Binay. It is also a battle … for solutions to the problems of the downtrodden,” she said.

Senator Binay said her father was no stranger to uphill battles, pointing out that he launched his campaign for the vice presidency with a rating of 2 percent but finished the race as the winner.

The polls then, she said, are “not the measure” of potential victory or loss in elections.

For the Vice President’s camp, the polls are guides to “what to do and what issues” to deal with, she said.

On Friday, Joey Salgado, spokesman for Binay, said the Vice President took the results of the latest polls as “barometers of the pulse of the public” and that he would “continue to listen to the people.”

VP affected best

Former broadcaster Mon Ilagan, the new spokesman for Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party, said the poll results affected the Vice President.

“He would be a hypocrite [if he said] he was not affected,” Ilagan, a former mayor of Cainta, said. “But we [in] UNA believe he is still the best man for the post.”

“The surveys do not represent the 100 million Filipinos,” Ilagan said, adding that Binay would continue going around the country to “consult the people.”

“He still has 11 months and he [will take the people’s pulse] until [the election],” Ilagan said.

As for Poe, Ilagan said she could expect “more issues” to be hurled at her.

“But definitely these would not come from us,” he said.

OJT president

Sure enough, the new front-runner’s first detractor was not from UNA but from a party-list lawmaker allied with Binay.

Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza, who earlier announced that he would run for the Senate under UNA’s banner, said Saturday that Poe was too inexperienced to lead the country.

“If Sen. Grace Poe becomes President, an on-the-job training is what will happen to us,” Atienza said in an interview on Radyo Inquirer.

“I am afraid of what will happen if Grace Poe becomes President, because she has no experience. If she becomes President, whom do we run to? Another six years of what?” he said.

“Let us choose someone with a really deep experience. We need someone with experience,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from Poe.–With reports from DJ Yap and Niña P. Calleja

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