Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino has announced that Senator Robin Padilla is set to become the next party president of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP).
Tolentino said the actor-turned-politician is the frontrunner for the post, while former President Rodrigo Duterte will remain as chairman.
“He (Padilla) is not seeking reelection in 2025, so he is in a more comfortable position,” he said over Teleradyo Serbisyo.
Tolentino said the party presidency will still need to be formalized in elections, but that Padilla is already the ranking party official as PDP’s executive vice president.
Padilla resigned from the post in May 2023 to focus on his work as a senator. In his resignation, Padilla noted that the PDP-Laban has much to achieve and thus needs an EVP who can devote more time to the party’s affairs.
Padilla is the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes. He had conducted Senate hearings on bills to amend the economic provisions of the Constitution.
He also filed his own proposed measure that seeks to make changes in seven provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
Last month, Duterte named the party’s first four official candidates for senators in next year’s midterm elections.
The former president endorsed the reelection bid of incumbent Senators Christopher Go, Ronald dela Rosa, and Tolentino, as well as former movie actor Philip Salvador, who accepted the nomination to be part of the senatorial lineup for the 2025 elections.
Then PDP-Laban was a coalition between the Lakas ng Bayan party founded by the late former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1978, and the PDP founded in 1982 by the late former Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, Jr.