Interior Secretary Mar Roxas (INQUIRER PHOTO)
An administration senator said that Liberal Party (LP) presidential candidate Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II could not ride on the popularity of the administration’s “daang matuwid” (straight path) as he eyed the 2016 election.
Administration ally Senator Antonio Trillanes IV said “daang matuwid” defined the term of President Benigno Aquino III while Roxas only represented the Liberal Party.
In an interview on Radyo Inquirer 990 AM on Sunday, Trillanes bared his gap with the party of Roxas saying he personally asked LP officials not to consider him as his possible running mate.
Despite heaping praises for Roxas for being a decent, honest government official, Trillanes said that he did not see himself being part of the LP ticket.
“To be fair to Secretary Mar Roxas, he’s a decent man. I believe hindi siya corrupt. But what he represents is the Liberal Party. Basically, ang kanilang programa or plataporma ay pagpapatuloy ng nangyayari ngayon. Yung ‘tuwid na daan’ kasi, si Presidente Aquino lang ‘yun. Pero yung Liberal Party per se, I don’t see myself being part of that,” Trillanes said.
(To be fair to Secretary Mar Roxas, he’s a decent man. I believe that he is not a corrupt official. But what he represents is the Liberal Party. Basically, they aim to continue the status quo. President Aquino is the only ‘tuwid na daan.’ I don’t see myself being part of the Liberal Party.)
Last July 31, Aquino endorsed Roxas as the administration coalition’s presidential candidate at Club Filipino in San Juan City before party allies. Roxas said he accepted the challenge of the Filipino people to continue the “daang matuwid.”
Days before endorsing Roxas, Aquino said in his sixth and last State of the Nation Address that the 2016 elections would be a referendum of his “daang matuwid” policy, asking Filipinos to make the reforms he initiated permanent.
“The next election will be a referendum for the straight and righteous path. You will decide whether the transformation we are experiencing today will be permanent, or simply a brief and lucky deviation from a long history of failure,” Aquino said.