No fanfare expected in Mar-Leni filing

MANILA, Philippines - No fanfare is expected when Liberal Party (LP) presidential candidate Manuel “Mar” Roxas II and his running mate Camarines Sur Rep. Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo file their certificates of candidacy at the Commission on Elections office in Manila on Thursday.

An advisory released by Roxas’s media relations bureau said the Roxas-Robredo tandem would file their certificates of candidacy at around 9:30 a.m.

Before the filing, Roxas and Robredo will attend the 7:30 a.m. mass at the nearby Manila Cathedral with their family and close friends.

“It will just be a simple affair. It will be a simple and a low-key event,’ administration coalition spokesman and Akbayan Rep. Ibarra Gutierrez said in a phone interview.

“They will just hear Mass at the Manila Cathedral and eat snacks at the plaza before they file their certificates of candidacy,” he added.

While Roxas and Robredo will file their certificates of candidacy together, senatorial candidates of the administration’s Koalisyon ng Daang Matuwid (coalition of the straight path) filed theirs individually.

Gutierrez said they decided to let their senatorial bets file their certificates on their own for practical reasons. He clarified that the individual filing does not mean that the coalition is not united.

“There will be too many people if they file their COCs (certificates of candidacy) together. It will be impractical,” he said. 

Roxas announced his plan to run for president last July 31.  He originally wanted to seek the presidency in 2010 but decided to run for vice president instead to give way to President Aquino, who was then a first-termer senator. The clamor for Aquino to run for president mounted after his mother, democracy icon and former President Corazon Aquino died on Aug. 1, 2010.

Aquino emerged victorious in the 2010 election but Roxas was not as lucky as he lost to Vice President Jejomar Binay by about 740,000 votes.

Robredo, meanwhile, had reservations seeking public office but eventually agreed to run as congressional representative of the third district of Camarines Sur in 2010.

She was not the first choice of the administration coalition for vice presidential candidate. The LP tried but failed to convince survey frontrunner Sen. Grace Poe to be the running mate of Roxas. Poe has decided to run for president instead.

Robredo was also reluctant to seek the vice presidency but eventually changed her mind supposedly to continue the legacy of her husband, the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

Jesse, who was widely praised for his simple lifestyle and corruption-free record, died in a plane crash off Masbate in 2012.

Roxas and Robredo, however, are still trailing behind their rivals in the latest surveys.

Roxas ranked second behind Poe in the recent Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations polls on presidential candidates while Robredo only got single digits in latest surveys on potential vice presidential bets.