AHEAD of today’s official start of the ruling Liberal Party’s 90-day campaign in Capiz and Iloilo, the campaign manager of the Koalisyon ng Daang Matuwid said two candidates in their senatorial ticket had a bleak chance to make it to the Magic 12.
“Well, we have to look at it as an introduction for them,” House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte told The Standard in the sidelines of the 1st Solo Parent Congress in Quezon City, referring to COOP-NATTCO party-list Rep. Cresente Paez and former Interior Department Assistant Secretary for Muslim Affairs and Special Concerns Nariman Ambolodto.
“The incumbents and former [officials] are way ahead, but it’s still a way for them to get introduced.”
The two relatively newcomers in the senatorial race completed the Liberal Party’s last-minute search for the “Team Daang Matuwid” senatorial candidates in October last year.
They filled in for former Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Francis Tolentino, who had been involved in the “twerking” controversy, and Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista who refused to join the senatorial race for personal reasons.
Paez, who is set to leave after completing his third term in the House, said earlier the ruling party offered him the senatorial post one day before the set proclamation on Oct. 12 last year, and after administration standard bearer Manuel Roxas II urged him to run.
He said he was also banking on the support of the 24,000-strong cooperatives in the country representing the farming, fisheries and SME sectors.
Ambolodto, the former officer in charge of Maguindanao during the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, described her senatorial run as a “call of destiny”.
“I didn’t plan to run as senator, but this is the call of destiny. We do carry women’s issues including the peace process in Mindanao,” Ambolodto said.
