Aquino, Grace Poe meet again

Senator Grace Poe and President Benigno Aquino III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

Less than a week after a six-hour dinner in Malacañang, President Aquino and Sen. Grace Poe met anew Monday afternoon, this time talking for five hours.

At the meeting, Poe said she sensed the “very difficult position” the President was in.

“I understand and sympathize with his predicament and situation,” Poe said in a text message.

“I consider him a true and sincere friend and he has my utmost respect,” she added.

Poe said the President reiterated his desire for all of them to continue working together, and that he believed that like him, they could and would do the best for the country.

“In the end, we both agreed to continue, in whatever capacity, striving and working for our countrymen and for the betterment of our children’s future,” she said.

The President’s meeting with Poe followed last week’s dinner with her, Sen. Francis Escudero and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.

Poe said Monday’s meeting with the President “is perhaps our last meeting before the Sona (State of the Nation Address) and … we both agreed that we both have the best interest of our country in mind in whatever decisions we will make in the coming days.”

Aquino had said he would announce his administration’s presidential candidate after his Sona on July 27.

Aquino is agonizing over the choice of whom to endorse in next year’s elections.

Poe, an independent, is the voters’ top choice as the next president based on the latest Pulse Asia survey while Escudero, also an independent and Poe’s close friend, is the most preferred to be the next vice president, according to survey results.

The two have yet to publicly declare whether they would seek a higher post.

Roxas, the presumptive standard-bearer of Aquino’s Liberal Party, also has not stated any intention to run for president in 2016.

Originally posted: 11:11 PM July 20th, 2015

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