After filing their certificates of candidacy, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Gringo Honasan raise their hands together as presidential and vice presidential bets of the United Nationalist Alliance. MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB/INQUIRER.net
SEN. GREGORIO “Gringo” Honasan II does not know if his mentor and close friend, Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, is supporting Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. over his own bid for the vice presidency in next year’s elections.
In a TV interview Thursday, Honasan, the running mate of presidential candidate Jejomar Binay, said that when Enrile, along with former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, raised the hand of Marcos when he declared his vice presidential bid on Oct.10, Enrile did not know he was also seeking the same post.
Honasan said he consulted Enrile a day after the Marcos rally about his own bid.
“He told me at that point when he received the invitation to attend the Marcos rally and decided to be courteous, be proper—he did not know I was running,” Honasan said. “He said, ‘Be careful, you are making an important decision.’”
Asked if Enrile told him it would be a mistake for him to seek the vice presidency, he said: “Why do I have this relationship with Senator Enrile for half of my life? Because we never interfere in each other’s judgment calls.”
Honasan did not agree that Enrile and Estrada had abandoned Binay. They were known to be the “three kings” of the opposition.
“Maybe they have gone their own separate political trajectories. Abandon is a little too harsh,” he said. “How can you read what’s in the people’s hearts and minds?”
Honasan was also asked if he was bothered that the younger generation of Filipinos seemed to have forgotten what he had fought for in the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution that toppled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, whose son is now seeking the second highest post in the land.
The former Army colonel who, along with Enrile, mounted the aborted coup against the elder Marcos that sparked their civilian-backed military uprising, said the people, including himself, had the responsibility to inform the younger generation of this important moment in the nation’s history.
Will he accept a Marcos presidency or vice presidency? “Yes if the Filipino people decide it,”’ Honasan said.
He reiterated that he was nominated by the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) to become its vice presidential candidate and that he accepted this after getting the approval of his family. He said he told UNA, “Please do not use me as a deodorant, as a prop.”
He said he asked UNA to allow him to mount a “serious campaign for Vice President—logistically, financially and morally.”
“I think I can put up a good fight,” he said.
The senator said he agreed to join Binay in his quest for the presidency because he believed in the Vice President in spite of the corruption allegations against him.
“Providence brought us together for a higher purpose, which is to unite the country under the system of laws,” he said. “I believe he can be a unifying President. I believe he has experience and track record whether these allegations are correct or not.”