Susan Roces on Grace Poe presidential bid: It’s up to her

Actress Susan Roces (third from right), with daughter Senator Grace Poe to her left, commemorate the death anniversary of Fernando Poe Jr. at the Manila North Cemetery in this file photo. Roces said she was leaving it to Poe to run or not for the presidency in 2016 and go against Vice President Jejomar Binay (right). ALLAN PEÑAREDONDO/CONTRIBUTOR

Actress Susan Roces, wife of the late Ferdinand Poe Jr. (FPJ), on Thursday said she was leaving it up to her daughter, Senator Grace Poe, to run or not for president in 2016.

“It’s up to her to decide whether she will follow her father’s footsteps,” she said on ANC’s morning news show, Headstart.

Roces expressed her admiration for her daughter’s prominence in election surveys. However, she said there was much more to numbers.

Poe has recently zoomed to the top of surveys on potential candidates for president, bumping off previous poll frontrunner Vice President Jejomar Binay.

The senator has also topped surveys on probable vice presidents and most trusted senators.

The actress’ hesitance in getting involved in Poe’s candidacy could be due to her late husband’s candidacy in the 2004 elections, which she was initially against.

She stood by her decision not to meddle with her daughter’s decisions.

“[As a mother], you can only perhaps give suggestions if you are asked,” she said.

Roces declined to comment on intrigues raised by the allies of Binay about the possible candidacy of Poe, whose citizenship and residency were questioned.

She said she was keeping busy with a TV series adaptation of FPJ’s “Ang Probinsyano” (1997), which started taping end of May.

“[Politics] is another world. This [show business] is my world and I love it,” she said. Mary Gillan Frances G. Ropero, Inquirer.net trainee