Alvarez okay as party’s campaign manager, not as senatorial candidate in 2019

House of Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA

House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez would not try his luck in the Senate race and be content to head the campaign team for the senatorial candidates of the ruling Partido ng Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) in the 2019 election.

“No, I am only a congressman,” he told reporters who asked if he had plans of joining the administration party’s senatorial slate.

Alvarez, however, said he would naturally accept the responsibility of serving as the national campaign manager for the PDP-Laban.

“Well, I will accept that because anyway I am the secretary general of the party. If that is the job assigned to me, I will accept it,” Alvarez said in Filipino.

He said the initial six names revealed by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III would still be open to changes.

“Some names may be added and some names may be removed, because as the Majority Leader [Rodolfo Fariñas] says he does not wish to,” the Speaker said.

Besides Fariñas, according to Pimentel, the PDP-Laban president, other potential senatorial candidates in the party’s “Magic 12” would include Negros Occidental Rep. Albee Benitez, Bataan Rep. Geraldine Roman, Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, and former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chair Francis Tolentino.

Pimentel, who will occupy one of the slots as he seeks re-election, said the list was still unofficial and were “just my personal preferences.”

Alvarez said the administration party was still in the process of studying who among other politicians “might have a chance to win” to complete the 12 Senate slots.

He said he preferred that the candidates come from PDP-Laban, instead of other parties.

But some candidates may come from coalition partners, particularly Nacionalista Party, “as we have been allied for a long time,” Alvarez said.                                   /kga