42-strong party-list bloc torn between Roxas and Poe

A party-list bloc belonging to the majority coalition in the House of Representatives will not support a common presidential candidate in 2016, with its members torn between Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Sen. Grace Poe.

Ako Bicol Rep. Rodel Batocabe said members of the 42-strong party-list bloc held a meeting on Monday, in which it was decided that each one of them was free to support their own candidates.

“We will not support any presidential candidate as a coalition, since we have different positions and support different candidates. There is no consensus on a common candidate,” he told a press forum.

Batocabe said some members of the bloc were partial to Roxas, the Liberal Party standard-bearer, while others favored Poe, the front-runner in the presidential preference surveys. He added that a number of the party-list representatives even supported Vice President Jejomar Binay.

“There are many party-list groups which support the administration candidate, but not all of us do,” Batocabe said.

As for the senatorial race, he said another agreement reached during the Monday meeting was that the bloc would support the campaign of current or former members who wished to run for a Senate seat.

Among them were ACT-CIS Rep. Samuel Pagdilao, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority Director General Joel Villanueva, who formerly served as representative of Cibac party-list group, and PhilHealth Director Risa Hontiveros, who used to be an Akbayan representative.

As for Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza, who is running for senator under Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance, Batocabe said: “We’re still debating [whether to support him].”

Atienza is a member of the independent minority bloc, but his party-list group belongs to the majority bloc.