MANILA, Philippines — Is Vice President Leni Robredo running for president just because of the Marcoses?
Manila mayor and presidential aspirant Isko Moreno Domagoso seemed to imply this during an event of his party Aksyon Demokratiko on Friday.
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“‘Yun lang ang dahilan niya kung bakit siya tatakbo? Dahil lang sa mga Marcos na naman?” Domagoso said in response to a question from a reporter.
(Is that the only reason why she is running? Because of the Marcoses again?)
Domagoso, however, was mistaken as Robredo made it clear earlier Thursday that while she feels strongly about preventing the Marcoses from returning to Malacañang, this was not the tipping point that made her decide to run for president.
Robredo even said that the decision of her rival, former Sen. Bongbong Marcos, to enter the presidential derby was not what prompted her to vie for the highest seat in the land.
“It’s the realization that this is the right thing to do,” she said partly in Filipino. “This is the realization from the [unity] talks because it’s hard to force that when you’re not aligned.”
Robredo was engaged in negotiations with various political players to forge unity with the goal of building a single ticket that would go head-to-head with and defeat President Rodrigo Duterte’s anointed bets.
Among the politicians Robredo was in touch with was Domagoso. However, Robredo said among the reasons why talks with the Manila mayor broke down was because of his stance on the Marcoses.
Domagoso has said in previous interviews that he admired the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, but abhorred the human rights violations committed during his regime.
Robredo announced a change in tack in her unity talks, abandoning her previous strategy of uniting politicians.
“The focus now is not to unite the principals, but the people,” she said in Filipino at a press conference. “It is not needed for us politicians to unite, but what is the most important is to give an alternative to a majority of the people where they can dream and feel hope again.”