FORMER Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto has agreed to join the Nacionalista Party’s senatorial team, and his wife, Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos, is expected to join him in the opposition.At the Kapihan sa Maynila at Manila Hotel, NP spokesman Adel Tamano yesterday revealed a partial list of the party’s senatorial ticket that includes him, Recto, Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., renegade Marine Col. Ariel Querubin and former Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla.
Tamano said the NP has more than enough applicants for the senatorial slate, but the party will leave four to six slots open for coalition partners to fill.
Tamano also strongly hinted that NP standard bearer Senator Manuel Villar has already chosen Senator Loren Legarda of the Nationalist People’s Coalition as his runningmate. This means that the NP and NPC will coalesce in the 2010 elections, he said.
While Tamano did not identify Villar’s choice of runningmate, he described the aspirant as “matalino [intelligent], maganda [beautiful] and maka-kalikasan [pro-enviroment].”
Legarda leads an environment movement.
Villar earlier said he would announce his runningmate and the NP senatorial bets by the middle of November. But Tamano said this has been moved to a later date because the event could be overshadowed by the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto bout on Nov. 14 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
He said it would not be fair to announce their vice-presidential candidate, “because it may not get the publicity it deserves,” the NP spokesman said.
He said it was logical for Recto to join the NP ticket because he was head of the NP-Youth during the Aquino administration, Tamano said. His grandfather, the late Senator Claro M. Recto, was a party stalwart in the 1950s and 1960s.
“I saw Recto two weeks ago. We were in the same plane bound for Cebu. He shook my hands and told me ‘we’re running on the same ticket,’” Tamano told reporters.
Santos was being groomed by the administration to run as vice president of Lakas-Kampi standard bearer Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro. But she turned it down and decided to run again for governor in the 2010 polls.
Apparently aware of her husband’s plan to join NP, she said she would go wherever her husband goes.
“The indication is she [Santos] will run with us,” Tamano said. Fel V. Maragay
Source: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNation.htm?f=2009/november/10/nation6.isx&d=/2009/november/10
No comments:
Post a Comment