Former Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque, Jr. on Monday announced that he is no longer running for senator in the 2019 polls.
Instead, he said took the President’s advice to return to Congress. He will be running as a nominee of an environmental group, the Luntian Pilipinas party-list together with actress Ciara Sotto.
He is also expected to file his certificate of nomination today (October 16).
He said although it was really his intention to file a certificate a candidacy for the position of senator, he considered his “best option” now, which is to go back to Congress.
“The race for Senate seat is competitive. We have 7 re-electionist and 5 come-backing senators in addition to the new faces and finance as I said has always been a hindrance,” he said, adding that the recent senatorial survey results was ”definitely” a factor for his decision.
Roque did not make the cut among the senatoriables in the recent survey results.
Roque said his choice to run for an environmental partylist group was “influenced largely” by developments that happened in Itogon and Mactan, referring to landslides in those areas, and the President’s “unrelenting desire” to protect the environment.
“If you recall, the President has repeatedly said that he wants open pit mining closed and this will be the advocacy that we will be pushing in Congress,” he added.
He also admitted that he was “daunted” when the Press Secretary post was offered to him and admitted that he thought he was not really cut for the job.
“Being a spokesperson is very different from being a press secretary because he will have to head all the state information infrastructure including an actual TV station, an actual news agency, an actual news bureau and I’ve never had any actual experience with being a journalist. To me, it’s a very good offer for which I’m grateful but it’s really a post that I did not feel I had adequate training for. That’s the truth,” he said.
Nonetheless, Roque said he did his best to do his job as a Presidential Spokesman.
“So it’s difficult not to have your own personality especially when you are highly opinionated such as myself; so an elective mandate, well again ‘no, entail expressing my own views, espousing my own solutions to the many problems of the nation,” Roque said.
“It’s time to be my own person again,” he added.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panel will take over Roque’s functions as presidential spokesman.
Image credits: Valerie Escalera/Presidential Communications Operations Office