{"id":59032,"date":"2015-08-14T23:01:27","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T15:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=59032"},"modified":"2015-08-14T23:01:27","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T15:01:27","slug":"cabinet-members-free-to-choose-whom-to-support-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/08\/14\/cabinet-members-free-to-choose-whom-to-support-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Cabinet members free to choose whom to support in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III presides over a Cabinet Meeting at the Aguinaldo State Dining Room of the Malaca\u00f1an Palace. 2015. (Photo by Malaca\u00f1ang Photo Bureau\/Gil Nartea)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 Although President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III endorsed Interior Secretary Manuel \u201cMar\u201d Roxas as his preferred successor, Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. clarified that the Cabinet members were still free to choose whom to support in next year\u2019s presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda earlier stated that the Cabinet was \u2018solidly behind\u2019 Aquino\u2019s \u2018anointed\u2019 candidate in the coming national elections but Coloma clarified that the President never imposed anything to them, especially when it came to election decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the question of whether each cabinet member has freedom to choose his candidate, of course, the answer to that is yes,\u201d Coloma said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know the President. He has never forced us to do anything. His approach is giving justification, giving an opportunity to understand his policies and programs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Coloma believed, however, that the Cabinet was united with a common goal \u2013 ensuring that the next President would continue the good reforms Aquino started.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I know is the Cabinet is united in supporting, sustaining the programs of the administration because that is their sworn duty. Each member of the Cabinet is considered the alter ego of the President so their actions are part of fulfilling their duties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there have been speculations that some Cabinet members were considering supporting other possible presidential candidates in the 2016 general elections.<\/p>\n

While majority were likely backing Roxas, others seemed to be inclined to vote for Vice President Jejomar \u201cJojo\u201d Binay or Senator Grace Poe instead.<\/p>\n

Education Secretary Armin Luistro, for his part, decided to remain politically neutral since his department will be working closely with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in next year\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong the Cabinet, I should be the one who is colorless. We are the partner of COMELEC because of our election duties. I think it is more important that we, together with the COMELEC and the public, ensure that the elections will be clean and credible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided not to appear in political gatherings so that our election duties will not be colored. Our elections to be viewed as fair,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Luistro also asked that social services would not be linked to politics or the coming elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we stop building classrooms because we fear that it might be interpreted as politicizing, the people will be shortchanged\u2026 Maybe other government programs can wait but health, education and social services should be beyond politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 Although President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III endorsed Interior Secretary Manuel \u201cMar\u201d Roxas as his preferred successor, Presidential Communications …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":59033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95,483],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-59032","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\/59032","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=59032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}