Like Fariñas, Alvarez not keen on running for senator

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said on Wednesday he won’t try his luck in the Senate race in 2019 and would be content to head the campaign team of the ruling PDP-Laban party’s senatorial candidates.

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

Alvarez said as secretary general of the PDP-Laban, he would accept the responsibility of managing the party’s national campaign if that job were assigned to him.

List not final

He said the six senatorial candidates to be fielded by the party that were disclosed by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III could still be changed.

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

Besides Fariñas, Pimentel said the other candidates would be Negros Occidental Rep. Albee Benitez, Bataan Rep. Geraldine Roman, Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, and former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chair Francis Tolentino.

‘Personal preferences’

Pimentel, who is also the PDP-Laban president, will run for reelection. He said the list of six was still unofficial and based just on his “personal preferences.”

Alvarez said the administration party was considering including other politicians who “might have a chance to win” to complete its “Magic 12.”

He said he preferred that all the candidates come from PDP-Laban.

But some candidates, he said, may come from the party’s coalition partners, particularly the Nacionalista Party, “as we have been allied for a long time.”