“It’s time you and I bring this journey to the next level, the next higher level,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Thursday said in her birthday speech, referring to her plans to run for the Senate in 2016.
While there is no categorical declaration that she will run, she said, “We have yet to get from point ‘J’ to point ‘S.'”
“If you ask me, I think it’s time you and I bring this journey to the next level to a higher level, the next higher level; like from point ‘J’ to point ‘S’ (‘J’ is Justice while ‘S’ is senate),” de Lima said.
De Lima said she does not want to make a categorical declaration because she does not want to be presumptuous or preemptive of any official announcement from President Benigno Aquino III or from Liberal Party standard bearer, Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas.
The Justice Secretary is among those being considered in the senatorial line up of the Liberal Party.
President Benigno Aquino III was supposed to visit de Lima at DOJ. Members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) flocked the DOJ building. However, they pulled out after information reached the Justice Department that members of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) started massing up in front of the DOJ building.
Tetch Torres-Tupas/JE