LP president still hoping Leni would ‘change her mind’
Might Leni still be persuaded to run?
The Liberal Party (LP) hopes so. Party president Erin Tañada said on Tuesday that former Vice President Leni Robredo will hopefully reconsider and run for president in 2028 instead of seeking a local post, after a Pulse Asia survey showed she was closing in on Vice President Sara Duterte in terms of voter preference in a hypothetical head-to-head.
Tañada said Robredo is in a “better position” to contest the presidency now than in 2022, when she lost heavily to then presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Now serving as mayor of Naga City, Robredo has ruled out a national run in the 2028 elections, saying she prefers to stay for a second term as local chief executive.
Space—for now
“We’ll give Vice President Leni her space… [but] we are hoping that sometime this year, or early next year, she would change her mind,” Tañada told the Inquirer in a phone interview. “We’re still hoping because it’s still early.”
Robredo still retains strong grassroots support despite stepping away from national politics after her failed presidential bid and stint as the nation’s second-highest official from 2016 to 2022.
Tañada said the LP will plan and mobilize ahead of the 2028 polls on the assumption that Robredo, whom he views as the “strongest candidate,” will run for president.
“The direction that the party leadership gave to the different chapters is to organize as if she’s running,” he said.
A commissioned Pulse Asia survey result reported on Monday showed Robredo behind Duterte by eight points, with 51 percent of Filipinos saying they would vote for the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, compared with 43 percent for Robredo.“If you look at the results now, she’s doing much, much better,” Tañada said.
Kiko or Mar?
Tañada said the LP has yet to begin searching for a standard-bearer, noting that any process should be coordinated with an “opposition coalition” preparing for the elections.
“People are focused on the impeachment first,” he said.
Robredo had recommended Sen. Kiko Pangilinan as a potential presidential candidate, according to Tañada, but Pangilinan “has not shown interest.”
On Monday, Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, an LP member, said he is urging former Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II to run for president.
“We need to look and study the numbers [to know] who is the most viable candidate to campaign for 2028,” Tañada said.
Baseless ‘intrigue’
Meanwhile, Malacañang on Tuesday dismissed Vice President Sara Duterte’s remarks seemingly raising doubts about the integrity of the 2028 elections as baseless and mere intrigue-mongering.
This came after Duterte, in an interview in The Hague, the Netherlands, said, “we can only pray that there will be a presidential election” in 2028 that is “honest, orderly, and peaceful.”
She made the statement when asked if she was ready to be the next President in 2028. Duterte had expressed her intention to run for the office in February.
“I’m already a presumptive candidate because I declared my intention to run for the next presidential elections. We can only pray that there will be a presidential election in 2028 and it will be honest, orderly, and peaceful,” Duterte said.
In the view of Palace press officer Claire Castro, “we can see the Vice President’s eagerness to talk about the 2028 elections, while the President is busy addressing the effects of the Middle East crisis in our country.”
Castro said the Vice President was like her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who had said he was an expert in creating intrigue and planting evidence.
“Statements like these from the Vice President, we can say, are merely intrigue and stories without basis. And hopefully she reviews again, as a lawyer, what is actually in the Constitution, so she can also answer her own words,” Castro added.
Duterte, who is facing impeachment complaints over her alleged misuse of public funds and threats against the President, also spoke about her political support base, saying: “To be honest, perhaps all my political friends have already left me, but our fellow Filipinos have not left me.”
On Monday, the House of Representatives’ committee on justice approved its committee report on the two impeachment complaints against Duterte, recommending her removal from office after finding probable cause.
Should Duterte be convicted by the senator-judges at her impeachment trial, she will be disqualified from holding future public office, derailing her planned run for the presidency in 2028.
