FORMER Senator Agapito Aquino said he is not running for senator but for mayor of Makati, the country’s top financial center, and is negotiating with the incumbent Jejomar Binay, who is on his term and final term, to endorse him or at least stay neutral.“I am going to get [Binay’s son Jejomar] “Jun-Jun” Binay Jr. as my vice mayor,” Aquino told Standard Today.
“But I wish for Mayor Binay to be on my side, or at the very least for him to stay neutral.”
Aquino said he was aware that Binay was set to endorse his vice mayor, Ernesto Mercado, who is also on his last term, to replace him.
He said he had already asked the younger Binay to be his running mate, but he had yet to accept it.
“The [Nacionalista Party and Liberal Party] will surely back me up,” Aquino said.
“They do not have a candidate in Makati and they will not field a candidate. But it would be better if Mayor Binay, who has always been with me in all of my fights, would endorse me too.”
Aquino and Binay were co-founders of the Aug. 21 Movement, a group formed shortly after Aquino’s younger brother, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., was assassinated on his return to the Philippines on Aug. 21, 1983.
Binay also stood behind the late President Corazon Aquino when she was catapulted to power after a people power revolt drove the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos from Malacañang in 1986.
Aquino said House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, and Nacionalista Party spokesman Gilbert Remulla, who switched their support to Senator and Nacionalista Party president Manuel Villar when Senator Panfilo Lacson backed out of the presidential race, were also supporting him.
Aquino had accepted the Nacionalista Party’s offer to draft him as one of its senatorial candidates, but he said everything changed when his nephew, Senator Benigno Aquino III, declared he was running for president.
“I told Manny, sorry, I had to back out, I cannot anymore run for senator and campaign for you because of Noynoy,” he said.
“I cannot also run for senator under the LP because there will be two Aquinos running in the same ticket. I’ll just run for mayor and everybody will be my friend.” Christine F. Herrera
Source: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=/2009/october/23/news3.isx&d=/2009/october/23
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