Serious, popular bets file COCs

THE MORE popular and serious aspirants took the focus away from the colorful and the bizarre aspirants for 12 Senate seats at stake in next year’s elections on the fourth day of filing of certificates of candidacy (COCs) at the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Without fanfare, the lesser known senatorial aspirants of the Liberal Party (LP), Nariman Ambolodto and Cresente Paez, filed their COCs separately hours after the administration party’s standard-bearer, Mar Roxas, and running mate, Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, filed their documents Thursday morning.

In his speech, Paez, who wants to be known as “Mr. Coop,” said his clout was anchored on the strength of 24,000 cooperatives and 12 federations across the country.

The Coop-Natcco (National Confederation of Cooperatives) representative said these groups with a total membership of 13 million comprised a “powerhouse” that would catapult him to a seat in the Senate.

Among the other LP candidates who formalized their entry in the 2016 elections were recently resigned Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Sen. Teofisto Guingona III. De Lima came with her mother, eldest son and cousin while Guingona was accompanied by his father, former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr.

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III filed for reelection in the afternoon as an independent, as he did in the 2010 balloting. When asked what party was he running under, he joked: “Birthday party.”

But on a serious note, Osmeña said it was difficult to be tied to a party because this would compel him to agree to whatever it would say. He also said he would have to listen first to all the presidential candidates’ debate on pressing issues before choosing one that he would openly support.

A lawyer and former president of the Federation of Freedom Workers, Allan Montaño was the lone filer Thursday in the senatorial lineup of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

Also among those who quietly filed their COCs was whistle-blower Sandra Cam, who will try her luck in the Senate derby as an independent candidate. She was accompanied by former sexy star Dinah Dominguez.

Cam, the head of the Whistleblowers Association of the Philippines, urged her fellow anticorruption advocates to support her, as she vowed to push for the passage of a Whistleblower’s Act.

Claiming that she was once an overseas worker, Cam said her platform would focus on the rights of migrant workers and senior citizens. “I also want to address the issue of sovereignty in contested areas of the West Philippine Sea,” she added.

Wearing a hot pink scarf and matching pink shoes and bag, lawyer Lorna Kapunan submitted her COC for senator under the Aksyon Demoktratiko party of the late Sen. Raul Roco.

Kapunan said she would be included in the senatorial lineup of Senators Grace Poe and Francis “Chiz” Escudero.

“A lot of people have been asking me why I am running as a senator when there are more popular aspirants out there. I told them that it’s like buying a sweepstakes ticket: You will never win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket,” she said.

“I am that ticket of hope, and if you don’t buy that ticket of hope, don’t get upset,” said Kapunan, a former lawyer of Janet Lim-Napoles, accused mastermind of the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam.

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