SCREENGRAB FROM Mar Roxas’ official Facebook account
Former Interior Secretary and defeated presidential candidate Manuel “Mar” Roxas II on Thursday lauded his friend, former President Benigno Aquino III, for a job well done as the latter stepped down from office.
Roxas, Aquino’s anointed one in the May presidential election, took to social media to extend his gratitude to the former President for leaving the Philippines in a better state.
READ: Aquino bids Malacañang farewell
“Hi sir Noynoy Aquino, I just wanna say—not that you needed to hear this from me, haha—you did good for our people and our country; you definitely are leaving things better off than you found them,” Roxas wrote in the caption of a Facebook photo of him with Aquino.
“I am proud to have been part of your journey and proud, too, to have been entrusted to carry on in these last elections,” he added.
Roxas lost to President Rodrigo Duterte in the elections by over six million votes.
READ: Duterte takes oath as PH’s 16th President
In 2009, Roxas gave way to then senator Aquino to be the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party in the 2010 elections and ran as vice presidential candidate instead.
Roxas said Aquino’s parents, democracy icons former Sen. Benigno Aquino and former President Corazon Aquino, must have been proud of their only son’s accomplishments for the country.
“Maraming maraming salamat po (Thank you very much). God bless you po. Surely your parents are pleased and proud,” Roxas said. JE/rga