{"id":56375,"date":"2015-07-20T15:52:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T07:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=56375"},"modified":"2015-07-20T15:52:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T07:52:44","slug":"majority-leader-aquinos-endorsement-may-not-be-fully-accepted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/20\/majority-leader-aquinos-endorsement-may-not-be-fully-accepted\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority leader: Aquino\u2019s endorsement may not be fully accepted"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"House<\/a>
House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 According to House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III may be delaying his endorsement as he first wanted to make sure that his preferred presidential candidate in next year\u2019s national elections will be supported by the ruling Liberal Party (LP) and the administration coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on his pronouncement that he is considering not only his leadership in the LP but also [the backing of the coalition], I would suppose that this is important to him,\u201d Gonzales said in an interview with dzBB.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what is probably delaying his decision \u2013 how to be sure that when he [makes] his choice, it will have the support not only of the Liberal Party but also of the coalition partners. That is the problem. This means the President\u2019s decision to endorse anybody will not be necessarily acceptable,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

It can be recalled that Aquino hosted a dinner and held several meetings with Interior Secretary Manuel \u201cMar\u201d Roxas II and Senators Grace Poe and Francis \u201cChiz\u201d Escudero.<\/p>\n

Poe, however, later on clarified that neither of the dinner or the meetings discussed who among them would be the President\u2019s preferred successor.<\/p>\n

Roxas was LP\u2019s presumptive standard-bearer while Poe and Escudero were independents who ran alongside Team P-Noy in the previous national elections.<\/p>\n

Gonzales also noted that Aquino would have made his endorsement earlier if he was only choosing from the LP with Roxas as its sole presidential bid.<\/p>\n

LP\u2019s coalition partners National People\u2019s Coalition, National Unity party and Nacionalista Party (NP), on the other hand, had not presidential candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Aquino) has a debt of gratitude to Mar but he also owes a debt of gratitude to those who stood by him [amid] his problems, particularly the last three years of his term,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gonzales admitted that he was unsure if Roxas, Poe or Escudero would be openly supported by the LP and its coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to second-guess the President. For all we know, he has talked to them (administration coalition). The President, by this time, has a very high political maturity, and I\u2019m sure he is not alone in making this decision. As to what he is doing or who he is talking to, I don\u2019t know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Gonzales stressed that Aquino\u2019s endorsement would be an advantage to any candidate but it did not guarantee victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the President endorsed Mar, we\u2019re not sure if that is acceptable. We also do not know if Grace and Chiz have their own political supporters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 According to House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III may be delaying his endorsement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":56377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95,483],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-56375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","category-politics","tag-rewrite","mauthors-cyra-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}