For Vice President: While Marcos mulls, Trillanes is raring to go

By: 9 years ago

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (left) and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Sunday he could only make a decision about running for higher office if the political landscape and alliances were clear.

“I think whatever decision I will make for 2016, it could very well be the most important decision I will ever make in my life,” Marcos told dzIQ or Radyo Inquirer.

The senator, whose term will end in 2016, asked the people, particularly his supporters, to be “patient” so he could make the “right decision.”

Marcos said his party, the Nacionalista Party (NP), is slated to announce possibly at the end of September its decision on the role it will play in 2016. The party also will decide whom to support in the presidential election, he said.

The NP was still waiting for two of its members—Marcos and Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano—to announce their plans for 2016.

Another NP member, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, had declared he would be running for Vice President as early as June.

In a separate interview also over Radyo Inquirer, Trillanes on Sunday reiterated he will run for Vice President and that if he, Marcos and Cayetano all ran for the same office, it was likely their party will go “zona libre” (free zone) and will not take a party position on whom to support.

He said he had talked to party head, former Sen. Manny Villar, who assured him all the candidates would be given support.

Trillanes also said that as early as June he had told Malacañang he did not want to go with the administration Liberal Party in 2016, but that he was told they were considering him as a running mate for Roxas.

He said he begged off, adding that he and his Magdalo party would part ways with the LP in 2016 because he disagreed with some of the positions the party had taken.

These included the LP’s support for the K to 12 basic education program that Trillanes had wanted scrapped, and the party’s support of the reproductive health law, partly because he disliked the requirement that sex education be taught to sixth graders.

Still, he said, he told the Palace he would continue to support President Aquino until the end of his term next year.

Asked if he just did not want to support Roxas next year, he said: “It’s not Secretary Mar. To be fair, he is a decent man, he’s not a corrupt person.”

Asked whom the NP would support if no member ran for President, Trillanes said party members were open to supporting Roxas, Sen. Grace Poe or Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

But in a text message later, Trillanes said the “sense” he got from NP members was that they were not keen on the party aligning with the LP in 2016.–Christine O. Avendaño