PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga Del Sur—Liberal Party candidate for president Manuel Roxas II on Friday dismissed rumors of a plan to ditch the administration’s vice presidential candidate, Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, in favor of Senator Francis Escudero, to prevent the return of another Marcos in Malacañang.
“I would like to clear things up. There’s no truth to these claims. We don’t have a Plan B, or even a Plan C, D or others. Our plan is to win because what we are coming from is a strong foundation of clean, orderly and plunder-free governance,” Roxas told reporters in a chance interview Friday noon.
Amid worries from her party mates that her numbers remained low, Robredo said nothing is impossible, and that with hard work and persistence, she could beat Escudero and Marcos, who are leading in the opinion surveys.
“I’m accustomed to this kind of fight,” Robredo said. “In Congress, I fought the most powerful politician in our province. I was the underdog at
the time and I didn’t have allies, but I made it.”
She said it was to be expected that Escudero and Marcos would be leading because they were senators.
But she said she was confident that the LP would not junk her and support her until the end of the vice presidential race.
“First of all, they’re the ones who laid their bets on me even when my ratings were still very low. How much more now that I’ve already picked up? They’re giving me all the support, I don’t have a reason to worry,” she said.
Robredo, the widow of Naga City mayor and former Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, was thrown into the national spotlight after Roxas failed to recruit Senator Grace Poe—who is now running against him for president—to be his running mate.
Earlier, political strategist Malou Tiquia, a staunch Robredo supporter, said in her Facebook page that “two different but credible sources” told her the party might junk the congresswoman if her poll numbers did not pick up.
But Tiquia retorted that Robredo’s survey numbers, from zero in September 2015 to 19 percent in January 2016 was “no small feat.”
“Yes, she is plateauing but that is because there is not enough support to get her message out via [the] air [waves],” Tiquia said.
Tiquia said Robredo “remains loyal to a fault to LP” and that the ruling party’s possible decision to junk her “at this early stage is cruel.”
But her source said: “Can she stop Marcos? Another candidate said he can”—referring to Escudero.
On the 30th anniversary of the Edsa Revolution, President Aquino made it clear he was leading a personal crusade to stop Marcos from winning.
Tiquia, founder of the political management firm Publicus Asia, said she asked her source if the LP would abort the plan to junk Robredo if her ratings rose to 25 percent. Her source remained quiet, she said.
“I ended the conversation with: ‘you don’t junk Leni, you give her the wherewithal to fight,” Tiquia said.
He then asked Tiquia not to get angry. “This is just politics,” he said.
On Thursday, Malacañang denied Tiquia’s claims that the ruling party would drop Robredo and likened her to “Wormtongue”—a fictional character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy who whispered the wrong advice to his king.
“Is it true that she [Tiquia] was a consultant for [Vice President Jejomar] Binay in his terrible debate performance and that she is rooting for Binay as president and Leni for VP? If so, I am not surprised at her efforts to Wormtongue a different tandem considering the debacle of Binay last Sunday,” Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.
“But here are the facts, Mar [Roxas] and Leni have been going out on a tandem campaign and both have been reinforcing Daang Matuwid and each other in their speeches. So, why listen to her when all you need to watch and listen are Mar and Leni on the campaign trail?” Lacierda said.
Tiquia slammed Lacierda’s claims of her working relationship with Binay.
“I also disclosed to Leni that I am with Binay. I am not a scheming person,” she said, adding that the Liberal Party could not deny the plan.
The President’s sister, Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, on Thursday said the entire Aquino family was behind Robredo.
“There’s nothing to worry about because Leni [Robredo] didn’t force herself to be the vice presidential candidate,” Aquino-Cruz said. “She has still time. The campaign has just started, and we just need to exert more efforts for her numbers to rise.”
Aquino-Cruz added that she and her sisters would also join the campaign trail soon to support LP bets in the May elections.
The latest Social Weather Stations survey released February 2016 showed Marcos tying for the first time with consistent frontrunner Escudero.
Marcos’ ratings climbed from 25 percent in January to 26 percent while Escudero’s slipped from 28 percent to 26 percent.
Also on Thursday, Gov. Joey Sarte Salceda of Albay said his province may junk the administration ticket after the failure of Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya to award the Bicol International Airport project.
Salceda, the LP’s provincial chairman, had previously jumped ship in 2010 to the Liberal Party after it was clear that Aquino would become president.
“If Mar Roxas will lose in Albay in the May 2016 election, it’s [the Liberal Party’s] problem because they did not fulfill the construction of Bicol International Airport as promised,” Salceda told Albay-based reporters.
“How can I campaign for Roxas when the Albayanos are losing trust because of the DoTC’s failure to follow through President Aquino’s vital project in Bicol despite the availability of funds?” he added.
Roxas denied Salceda’s claims, adding that he was not afraid to lose Albay because he’s “sticking with the truth.”
Roxas said there was already earth moving equipment at the site of the airport, and that work on access roads were about halfway completed.
Salceda, who is running for a congressional seat for Albay’s second district, urged Abaya earlier this month to hasten the awarding of the contract for Phase 2A of the Bicol International Airport project, which would cover the construction of land side facilities.