THE five presidential candidates for the 2016 elections have already confirmed that they will attend the debate on Feb. 21, Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista said Friday.
Bautista said presidential candidates Vice President Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance, former Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II of the Liberal Party, independent candidate Senator Grace Poe and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte PDP-Laban have all confirmed their participation.
The debate will be the first presidential debate to be conducted outside of Metro Manila and will be held at Cagayan de Oro.
“All the five representatives of the presidential candidates confirmed that all of them will be attending the first presidential debate in CDO on Feb. 21,” Bautista said.
The debate will be moderated by GMA news anchor Mike Enriquez and Jessica Sojo and co-hosted by John Nery of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Bautista said the four topics to be discussed in the debate are economic development, peace and order, track records and the Mindanao issue.
“This is the first time a presidential debate is held outside MM and it will be held in Mindanao,” he added, sayng that the debate is patterned from CNN Republican Debate.
On March 20, the second leg of debate will be held in Visayas which will be sponsored by the TV5 and the Philippine Star.
The April 24 presidential debate in Luzon will be hosted by ABS-CBN and Manila Bulletin; while the lone vice presidential debate to be held on April 10 in Metro Manila will be taken care by CNN Philippines and Business Mirror.
It will now be the lead media entities that shall be given the prerogative to identify the host facilities, preferably in schools.
Section 7 of the Fair Election Act states that the Comelec “may require national television and radio networks to sponsor at least three national debates among presidential candidates and at least one among vice presidential candidates.”