Bongbong says he’s open to presidency 05/21/2010

Bongbong says he’s open to presidency

05/21/2010 Incoming Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is now talking about becoming President after elections showed him to be one of the nation’s most popular politicians. Marcos said he had decided to step up to the Senate — after serving for nine years as Ilocos Norte governor and three as a House of Representatives member — purely to give ordinary Filipinos a voice on the national stage. “I really felt that I could help, I really felt that I had learned very much and I could bring those lessons to a national stage,” he told Agence France Presse. Marcos insisted that entering the Senate was not part of a well-orchestrated plan to run for the presidency in the next elections in 2016. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six years so I think to plan for that is actually not even a practical thing to do, a wise thing to do. Because you have to watch and wait really,” he said. Nevertheless, he said that he did want to emulate his father by becoming president. “In the way that every foot soldier wants to be a general,” he said. Marcos also insists his family has nothing to apologize for in regards to his father and namesake’s 20-year rule of the country that ended in 1986 with a “people power” revolution and a humiliating escape into exile. “My father doesn’t need me to vindicate him,” a relaxed Marcos told AFP on Wednesday in his first major interview since last week’s national elections that saw him secure more than 13 million votes and a seat in the Senate. “What will vindicate my father will be the academics and the historians who will look back on his time in the cold light of day and see his administration for what it was.” To many, Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s reign was dominated by widespread human rights abuses, the family stealing billions of dollars from state coffers and the wholesale slaughter of a fledgling democracy aimed at holding on to power. But Marcos Jr. said his father, who died in 1989 in US exile and now lies embalmed in the family home in Ilocos province, committed no major crimes and was a superior president to those who succeeded him.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100521hed5.html

HEADLINES Smartmatic admits PCOS errors on poll day Gov’t sets midnight P17-B Malampaya stake sale Palace warns of political firestorm over fraud raps LP to get juicy posts in House Bongbong says he’s open to presidency Bangkok riots escalate; Pinoys in Thailand safe — DFA