Two close aides of President Rodrigo Duterte filed their certificates of candidacy on Monday, marking an end to their stints in the Palace.
The President accompanied Special Assistant to the President Christopher Go to the Commission on Elections office where he filed his certificate of candidacy for senator.
“This is my first time to run… I am nervous,” said Go, who is pursuing a Senate seat even though surveys do not place him among the top 12 candidates.
“I also felt a little and [about] this new development in my life,” Go said. “I will be away from the President, but I will strive to help him in my private capacity. I am still on his side.”
Meanwhile, saying it was time to be his own person again, former presidential spokesman Harry Roque said he parted ways with the President on “very good terms” to run for a seat in the House of Representatives under the Luntian Pilipinas party-list group in the 2019 elections.
In doing so, he dropped plans to run for the Senate, after the President told him he would not win because the military did not like him.
“It’s time to be my own person again… I’m now back to the old person that I was. I knew that as a spokesperson, I had no personal views, that period has ended I’m able now to freely advocate for the many issues that are close to my heart,” he said.
Roque said he will run as the first nominee of Luntian Pilipinas, an environmental party-list group, with Ciara Sotto, daughter of Senate President Vicente Sotto III as the second nominee.
Roque said his choice to run under the Luntian Pilipinas party-list group was influenced by the President’s desire to protect the environment.
“I took his advice that the best option right now is to go back to Congress, which is really was one of my options. The Senate is really crowded,” Roque said, noting there were seven incumbent and five former senators seeking re-election.
Roque also noted that he did not fare well in recent surveys of senatorial hopefuls.
“It was really a hard reality to accept that perhaps we need to do more to convince the people that we are worthy for the Senate,” he said.
He also said he did not have enough to finance a nationwide campaign.
Roque, a former human rights lawyer, said he had no regrets becoming Duterte’s spokesman.
Roque’s stint as the President’s mouthpiece for almost a year was marked by seeming contradictions between his work as a human rights advocate and the President’s bloody war on drugs.
His decision to drop his Senate bid came days after Duterte remarked that Roque would not win in the 2019 senatorial race. Roque had also appeared slighted that he was left out of the loop when he wasn’t informed that the President underwent an endoscopy earlier this month.
READ: Merry mix of early birds for senatorial polls
Former action star Lito Lapid and re-electionist Senator Grace Poe led another wave of senatorial hopefuls for the 2019 local elections on the third day of the filing of certificates of candidacy at the Comelec office in Intramuros, Manila.
Re-electionist JV Ejercito and Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano of Magdalo were among the prominent personalities who filed their CoCs at the Comelec accompanied by their supporters.
The lawyer who filed the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Larry Gadon, also filed his CoC.
Comelec officials said many of the unknown candidates who cannot support their campaign for the 2019 elections are likely to be listed as nuisance candidates.
Poe was accompanied by her mother, veteran actress Susan Roces when she filed her CoC on Monday. She topped the senatorial polls in 2013 and is seeking another term at the Senate.
Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito will no longer use his father’s surname, Estrada, for reelection where he is expected to fight for a Senate seat with his half-brother, former senator Jinggoy Estrada.
Ejercito and Estrada are sons of former president Joseph Estrada with San Juan Mayor Guia Gomez and Estrada’s wife, former senator Loi Ejercito, respectively.
Alejano was accompanied by Duterte’s fiercest critic, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who said he will not run again after his term expires on June 30, 2019.
At the Comelec, Senator Cynthia Villar, accompanied by her husband former Senate president Manny Villar, went to the Comelec to file her certificate of candidacy. She is seeking her second term under the Nacionalista Party, where she sits as the national director.
“We were able to make great strides in our mission to improve the quality of life of the farmers, our food producers, who are among our country’s poorest sector. We hope to be able to continue this work and help more of our people,” Villar said.
Former senator Lito Lapid, who once admitted he was a poor senator, filed his certificate to run again in 2019.
He and his son are both running under the Nationalist People’s Coalition, the party founded by former ambassador Eduardo Cojuangco.
Former Interior secretary and former senator Manuel Roxas II announced a four-minute video on his Facebook page that he would run for the Senate again.
