Sen. J.V. Ejercito (Photo from his Facebook page)
Sen. JV Ejercito bared on Wednesday that he and other re-electionist senators had been discussing the possibility of “banding” together for the 2019 midterm elections.
“Kasi usapan naming mga re-electionists parang wala kami sa binabanggit ni Speaker. Kung ayaw mo sa amin, e di okey lang. We will band together, magsasama na lang kami,” Ejercito said in an interview.
He was referring to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez who had earlier mentioned some names of possible senatorial bets of the ruling political group, PDP-Laban, in next year’s elections.
“Nag-usap na kami. Whatever happens, magkakasama kami,” Ejercito said.
Aside from Ejercito, other senators who are qualified for re-election in 2019 are Senators Sonny Angara, Nancy Binay, Cynthia Villar, Bam Aquino, and Grace Poe.
Five of them – Ejercito, Angara, Binay, Villar and Poe – belong to the Senate majority bloc, while Aquino is a member of the Liberal Party and part of the minority bloc in the upper chamber.
In separate text messages, Angara and Aquino confirmed that the issue had been taken up in informal discussions.
“Just loose discussions given a very fluid political situation,” he said. “No final decisions yet, just exploratory talks.”
For his part, Aquino said: “The idea has been brought up a few times but no forma talks.”
Asked about the possibility that they would run together in one senatorial ticket, Aquino said: “Again, no formal discussions as of yet.” /atm