UNA formally picks Gringo for VP

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) officially endorsed yesterday Sen. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan as the opposition party’s vice presidential bet for 2016.

In a statement, UNA president Navotas City Rep. Tobias Tiangco said the tandem of Vice President Jejomar Binay and Honasan highlights UNA as a party committed to uplifting the lives of the poor, upholding democracy and restoring the dignity of every Filipino.

Tiangco said the 67-year-old Honasan brings to the tandem his long years of service and experience as a soldier and legislator.

“He has championed the rights of the urban poor and farmers and promoted the welfare of the masses, government workers and our men and women in uniform,” he said.

Binay is the chairman of UNA, while Honasan is the vice president.

Binay on Monday said Honasan will make a formidable vice presidential candidate in the 2016 elections.

“Senator Honasan is very organized,” Binay said.

“He will be the strongest (candidate) if ever,” the Vice President said.

Honasan and Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. were the two individuals considered by the UNA’s selection committee to be Binay’s running mate.

The family of Marcos opposed his possible team-up with Binay in 2016, sources privy to the negotiations between both camps said yesterday.

“It’s one of the considerations. Senator Marcos consulted his family. When I say family it’s not only Imelda, but also Irene and Imee,” the source told The STAR yesterday, referring to the senator’s mother and siblings.

The tandem apparently did not push through because of their political history.

Binay, a human rights lawyer, fought the dictatorship of the senator’s father, Ferdinand Marcos.

The Vice President was jailed under martial law and became a loyal supporter of the elder Marcos’ rival, the late President Corazon Aquino.

In an interview in Misamis Oriental over the weekend, Binay said he had a phone conversation with Marcos last Oct. 2. The Vice President said they discussed the result of the selection committee, among others.

The source said it was the senator who called the Vice President.

“They (Binay and Marcos) were supposed to meet,” the source said.

But on Saturday, Marcos told the Vice President, through an emissary, that he could not accept the offer to be his running mate due to “political constraints,” the source added.

Marcos, 58, announced his vice presidential bid last Monday.

Marcos, in a statement, said “any team-up with the Vice President must be rooted on a shared vision for our country, a common platform of government as well as political perspectives.”

“Unfortunately it would be difficult for me to tame our political differences,” he said.

Discerning mind

Malacañang, meanwhile, expressed confidence yesterday the Filipino electorate would be able to discern who among the country’s vice presidential candidates would be deserving of the position.

President Aquino on Monday proclaimed Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo as running mate of the administration’s standard bearer, former interior secretary Manuel Roxas II.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a statement Marcos “joins a robust field of vice presidential hopefuls” that now include Robredo as well as Sens. Francis Escudero, Alan Peter Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes IV and Honasan.

“Our people are provided with a wide latitude of choice and an opportunity to compare platforms for governance and track records. We trust that the sovereign electorate will choose the most qualified and most competent among the aspirants,” Coloma said.

– With Aurea Calica