House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez said Monday he was keeping his options for a 2022 run open as his political party forms an alliance with Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio's regional party.
Romualdez's Lakas-CMD renewed its alliance with Duterte-Carpio's Hugpong ng Pagbabago ahead of next year's elections.
Duterte-Carpio has topped preference surveys for the position of president, and her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, recently said he would support Romualdez’s vice-presidential bid should he go for it.
In an interview on ANC's Headstart, Romualdez was asked if he would not seek the second highest executive post if not as the younger Duterte-Carpio's running mate.
He replied, "Obviously, the alliance is with HNP, so that will be the priority. I’ve not had many conversations with other parties with respect to this development."
"But we’ll keep our options open, and we’ll see how things come along.
But the likelihood will obviously be with our allies at the HNP," he said.
The president's daughter has not yet confirmed her plans for 2022, but at least one ally said he had "no doubt" Duterte-Carpio would run for president.
In January, she told her supporters to wait for 2034.
Meanwhile, the Commission on Elections has surpassed its target number of new voter registrants for the May 9, 2022 national and local elections.
“So far we have around 4.3 million new voters who have already registered which means we have already exceeded the expectations we set out with back in 2019,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a virtual forum on Monday.
At the same time, the poll body official is looking to have at least 60 million registered voters for next year’s national polls.
“Last week, we had 60 million registered voters in our list of voters.
Meaning to say, come 2022 we will have at least 60 million voters who will be potentially going to the polling centers on Election Day. The latest numbers are 4.3 million for new registrants. Roughly 60 million in terms of the whole list of voters,” he added.
But he said they were expecting the voter turnout to be lower than the number of registered voters.
The Comelec registered a 75 percent voter turnout in the 2019 midterm elections, where only 46.3 million out of a total of 61.8 million voters participated.
Some 84 percent of over 54 million voters participated in the 2016 presidential elections.
The ongoing nationwide voter registration will end on September 30.
