Senator Panfilo Lacson on Friday said he and Senate President Vicente Sotto III were still in consultations with several people and political leaders regarding their political plans in next year’s national elections.
In separate radio interviews, Lacson said he had yet to decide on the offer of Sotto, acting president of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), to be the party’s standard-bearer.
Earlier, Sotto, who is eyeing to join the vice presidential race, said the NPC is still wooing Lacson to run for president.
Meanwhile, an official of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines said there was no express prohibition in the 1987 Constitution that could bar President Rodrigo Duterte from running for vice president in next year’s elections.
IBP President Domingo Cayosa stressed that the constitution did not contain any provision disqualifying a sitting president from seeking the vice presidency after completing his single six-year term as president.
“The Constitution does not explicitly prohibit a president from running for another office after his term as president. What it prohibits is a reelection,” Cayosa said.
“There is no express legal impediment,” he added.
He cited the case of former presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Joseph Estrada who were elected as Pampanga congresswoman and Manila mayor, respectively, after stepping down as President.
Cayosa made the statement after President Duterte announced on Thursday that the public should consider him a candidate for vice president “at this time” amid calls from his partymates in the PDP-Laban to seek the country’s second-highest elective post.
Duterte said he was considering a vice presidential bid to avoid a lame duck status during his last year in office.
Duterte was reacting to a statement made by Magdalo party-list Rep. Manuel Cabochan that running for vice president would circumvent the intent of the Constitution to bar reelection to the presidency.
“Should President Duterte run for the vice presidency and win, he is next in line to become president — a post he previously held,” Cabochan said, adding “The Philippines is not and should not be a Duterte nation.”