Poe rejects 1Sambayan nomination, says she has no plans to run for president in Eleksyon 2022

Senator Grace Poe on Saturday said she has no plans to run for president in the upcoming 2022 national and local elections.

The lawmaker made the announcement shortly after the opposition coalition 1Sambayan announced her name as one of its nominees for president and vice president in the May 2022 polls.

“Nagpapasalamat tayo sa patuloy na pagtitiwala ng ating mga kababayan. Ngunit wala akong planong tumakbo sa pagka-Pangulo sa darating na eleksyon,” Poe said in a statement.

“Sa abot ng aking makakaya bilang senador, nais kong pagtuunan ng atensyon ang pag-ahon ng ating mga kababayan mula sa pandemyang ito,” she added.

Poe ran against then-Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and landed third in the May 2016 presidential race with 8.935 million votes.

She conceded defeat to Duterte after the former Davao City mayor led by a substantial margin during the vote count.

In August 2016, she said she has no regrets about running for president.

In 2019, she won another term in the Senate, ranking second in the senatorial candidates who got the highest number of votes.

Poe garnered almost 22 million votes during the 2019 midterm polls. 

Reacting to Poe’s statement, Atty. Howie Calleja said 1Sambayan respects Poe’s decision to remove her name from the coalition’s nominees for president.

But Calleja underscored that Poe is one with the coalition in its goal to field a candidate for presidency in the 2022 elections based on their conversations with the lawmaker.

“I think it is clear that she is with us in forming a united opposition, agreeing with 1Sambayan that we need only one candidate for the 2022 elections and we respect if she did not like to be under the names of the presidential candidates but we also have to remember that our list is for president or vice president or vice versa,” Calleja said during 1Samabayan’s online event. —KG/MDM, GMA News