LP moves on, vows to campaign hard for Mar

MANILA, Philippines - The Liberal Party has moved on and will campaign harder for its standard bearer Manuel Roxas II after Sen. Grace Poe finally spurned Roxas’ offer to be his running mate and announced that she will run for president in the 2016 elections, an LP stalwart said yesterday.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said Poe’s declaration was tantamount to turning down Roxas’ offer to be the administration vice presidential candidate.

“This is natural in politics. The Roxas-Poe tandem was what we wanted but it did not happen. We’ll just have to move on and campaign hard to win in 2016,” Evardone told reporters.

He said the LP’s national executive council is scheduled to nominate its vice presidential candidate on Sept. 28.

He said the LP remains strong and continues to accept new members, and the party no longer needs to engage in active recruitment.

Meanwhile, allies of Roxas yesterday said there was nothing new or concrete in Poe’s announcement that she will be running for president next year.

You Against Poverty and Corruption party-list Rep. Carol Jayne Lopez said the presidency is a serious matter and she was expecting to hear “new things from Poe, considering the intensity of the hype of the PR about her declaration.”

“Sadly though, anybody can mouth those same words. I anticipated deeper insights and more concrete plans from her, considering the melodrama projected regarding her supposed soul-searching before she made the decision to run,” Lopez said.

“It is unfair to make the more than 100 million Filipinos believe that solving the country’s challenges is as simple as putting together 20 bullet points of promises,” she said.

She said Poe’s platform of governance appeared to have been put together by public relations consultants.

She said while she was rooting for Roxas, she gave Poe the benefit of the doubt.

“But after listening to her my resolve is stronger – that the country needs a leader with wider and more serious vision, not just intense ambition,” Lopez said.

Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez said Poe has only repeated the Aquino administration’s Tuwid na Daan (straight path) slogan when she announced she was running for president.

“The present administration has put all the groundwork already and with her pronouncement, it’s like laying the same kind of foundation but with different brand of cosmetics. We don’t need another six years of putting up the same groundwork. What we need now is to level up,” Fernandez said.

Evardone said Poe appeared to have “copy-pasted” her speech from the administration’s programs and achievements.

“What she promised are already being by implemented by the administration,” Evardone said.

   Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice described Poe’s promises as motherhood statements.

“The real meat is in the details. It’s good poetry but how about the prose? Paano (What now) Poe? Will she agree to a debate with Secretary Mar and Vice President (Jejomar) Binay on policy issues she had presented?” Erice said. – With Danny Dangcalan