SENATE President Vicente Sotto III revealed over the weekend a tentative August 5 deadline for completing nationwide consultations on the issues for the upcoming 2022 presidential elections and formally announcing their decision to proceed with a “Lacson-Sotto” ticket with Senator Panfilo Lacson as standard bearer
Sotto III told DWIZ on Saturday he and Lacson are likely to “officially announce” their tandem by the first week of August.
“Ang plano namin ni Sen. Lacson, officially mag-a-announce kami sa August 5, tentatively, August 5 ang target,” the Senate leader said. “Meron lang mga consultations pa kaunti na aasikasuhin. Plano naming mag Visayas, baka next week, [Our plan is to announce by August 5. That’s the tentative target. We just need to hold more consultations. We plan to go to the Visayas, maybe next week],” he added.
The Senate President said they are still in the midst of their initial nationwide people-to-people consultations that he dubbed “Luzon tour,” to get a feel of the public pulse, and aim to reach out to also cover Visayas and Mindanao sorties.
Speaking partly in Filipino to DWIZ’s Cely Ortega-Bueno, Sotto said, “last Thursday we went to Bulacan, then proceeded to Pampanga, Tarlac, and then went to Zambales where we spent the night. The following day, we went to Ilocos Sur.”
He indicated the Luzon sortie is just their initial consultation-tour, before they formally decide to proceed with joining the 2022 presidential derby. Trips to other Luzon regions, and Visayas and Mindanao are planned as well. The senators are taking advantage of their break before the 18th Congress convenes its last regular session in late July.
He said, “we want to feel the people’s pulse. We went to Pangasinan, where we spent a lot of time, because, as you know, we have many friends among the mayors and councilors in Dagupan and Lingayen.”
They also want to know the sentiments and issues engaging “the private sector, the business community, local officials, even the religious sector, we are talking to them.”
He said they want to find out how these people think of what’s going on, how the country is governed, where the nation is headed for, what more can be done, and what problems they see in governance.
“In other words, bottom line, this is the consultative tour of Luzon,” he added.
Sotto said while there are also plans to go to Mindanao “later,” this would likely be “in-between the sessions…because we return to session on July 26.”
The Senate leader said he and Lacson reached a tentative August 5 deadline for officially announcing their tandem because they reckon that by then, “the consultations and the preparations and the information necessary that we want, by that time, will already be in our possession.”
At the same time, Sotto assured they have “no problem” working in alliance with other political parties. “It just so happened that there are many incumbents now who are my partmates in NPC,” he said, referring to the Nationalist People’s Coalition founded by businessman Eduardo Cojuangco.