Why UP Diliman is Grace Poe’s choice for ‘important announcement’

Senator Grace Poe. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JEOFFREY MAITEM

Senator Grace Poe’s camp disclosed on Tuesday why she chose the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman as the venue of her “important announcement” on Wednesday in connection with her plans in the 2016 elections.

READ: Grace Poe to declare presidential bid on Sept. 16 — sources

“Malapit sa kanya ang UP. Nag -aral sya sa UP noong college sya,” Poe’s staff member said over the phone on Tuesday when asked why the senator chose the university as the venue of her announcement.

The staff member said Poe studied for two years in UP before she moved to the Boston College in Massachusetts, USA, in 1988.

But in the documents that Poe had submitted to the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) in connection with the disqualification case filed against her showed the lady senator studied in UP Manila campus and not in Diliman, Quezon City.

Poe graduated in 1991 at the Boston College with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies, the documents also showed.

But a source close to the senator said another reason why she probably chose UP Diliman as the venue of her announcement was because it was also the venue of the biggest rally of her late father, Fernando Poe Jr., who ran and lost in the 2004 elections to detained former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“Nothing sentimental about it,” the source said of Poe’s choice of UP.

There were also talks that it’s because Poe’s grandfather, Filipino-American actor Fernando Poe Sr., was one of the models of National Artist for Sculpture Guillermo Tolentino when he did the UP Oblation.

The source said no invitation has been sent to any politicians to attend the event on Wednesday but said it would be open to anyone who would want to show their support for Poe’s possible run in 2016.

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who earlier gave her support for Poe’s presidential bid, confirmed this.

“Walang inimbitang pulitiko, there won’t be any place for politicians,” Trillanes, who is eyeing the vice presidency in 2016, told reporters.

But if the politicians would appear, Trillanes said they would probably be at the audience only.

Asked why he thinks Poe does not want politicians to be by her side during the announcement, Trillanes said it was because the lady senator probably wanted to show that she would be the “people’s candidate.”

Trillanes also suspected that Poe chose UP as the venue of her declaration because the university is known as the “bastion of freedom and independence.” TVJ

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