Presidential candidate Sen. Miriam Santiago and running mate Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. are set to appear together on Wednesday at the lady senator’s hometown in Iloilo, their third time together since the campaign season began.
The tandem is scheduled to hold a campus tour at the University of the Philippines-Visayas.
The sortie will be Santiago’s comeback after she took a break from the campaign to try a new anticancer treatment. It will be her seventh public appearance since the start of the campaign.
Since Feb. 9, the two have been seen together only twice: in Ilocos Norte during the campaign kickoff and at Ynares Sports Center in Pasig City for the Youth for Miriam Movement launch on Feb. 14.
Santiago had been doing poorly in pre-election surveys but Marcos said his running mate was still very much in the running.
“I don’t think the surveys reflect the complete picture because I don’t think the youth sector where Sen. Miriam is strong is being covered much,” he said.
Santiago has consistently ranked fifth in surveys while Marcos dominated the latest results of Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia.
Marcos noted that Santiago had been consistently topping several university mock polls. “Don’t say she is out of the running because she and I might just pull a surprise come Election Day,” he said.
He added that they were scheduled to attend more campus events together in the coming days.
Last month, Santiago announced that she would take a break from campaigning to undergo clinical trial for a treatment that would otherwise cost her half a million pesos every three weeks.
The trial will require Santiago, who was diagnosed with stage 4 or advanced lung cancer in 2014, to go through outpatient radiation treatment daily at a hospital for a short period. RC
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