Roxas confirms meeting with Poe but…

CATBALOGAN, Samar – Interior Secretary Mar Roxas has confirmed his “accidental meeting” with Senator Grace Poe in a Mandaluyong hotel last week but he declined to confirm whether he had asked the senator to be his vice presidential running mate.

In an ambush interview on Thursday, Roxas recalled how they bumped into each other in a hotel, where Roxas attended a lunch meeting with police officials.

“Apparently, Senator Poe was there for some other function. We saw each other in the corridor. She was coming out of the ladies’ room as I was entering the men’s room,” Roxas said in Filipino during the turnover of patrol jeeps to Eastern Visayas police in Samar province.

“Doon lang kami sa labas nagkita at nag-usap naman kami. Magkaibigan naman kami so chika chika lang,” he continued.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government chief, however, did not provide details on their meeting, whether he formally asked Poe to be his running mate in the 2016 national elections.

This was after Poe said in a recent interview that whenever she sees Roxas, the latter would always tell her that a “Mar-Poe” tandem would be a good idea.

But the lady senator said she had yet to decide if she would join Roxas in the presidential elections.

Roxas has been the presumptive standard-bearer of the Liberal Party despite his poor showing in the presidential polls.

Poe, meanwhile, consistently ranked high in poll surveys following Vice President Jejomar Binay. AC