Grace Poe under pressure

Senator Grace Poe. FILE PHOTO

Sen. Grace Poe on Wendesday said she was under pressure not from talk by her colleagues that she had decided to run for President but from having to make the right decision for the country.

In a text message, Poe said she was still weighing her options despite landing at the top of voter preferential polls for the 2016 presidential election.

According to Poe, the statements of Senators Sergio Osmeña III and Vicente Sotto III that she would run for President had put no pressure on her.

In the end, it is she who would decide independently what path to take, she said.

“These perceptions do not really put added pressure on me. While I consult my family and close friends when necessary, I am and have always been independent in deciding on important matters,” Poe said.

She said what weighed on her mind was whether her decision would benefit the country.

Not easy

On Saturday, Poe said deciding whether to run for higher office was not easy, especially since she had seen what her father, the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., went through when he ran for President in 2004.

She also said the presidency required a commitment to the people for six years so that a few weeks or months to decide was too short.

Poe and Sen. Francis Escudero are exploring the possibility of running together, but both insist they have yet to make a final decision.

The two do not belong to any party, but whether they run or not, they will remain independent, Escudero said earlier.

Liberal Party members want Poe to be the running mate of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, the party’s presumptive standard-bearer, but Poe has said she is comfortable running with Escudero.

She’s Filipino

As for the latest attack on Poe’s citizenship, her chief of staff Nelson Victorino reiterated her explanation that she has renounced her American citizenship years before going into government service.

“Now, she is a Filipino public servant who has taken an oath to serve the best interest of the Filipino people and uphold and defend the laws and the Constitution of our country. She is and will abide by her oath,” Victorino said in a statement.

He added that the true measure of love and loyalty to the country is not just the taking of an oath, but adherence to one’s sworn duty in mind and in practice, and that is what Poe is doing.

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