First to announce his intention to run for president is the incumbent vice-president Jejomar C. Binay, who has been leading in the presidential election surveys but is now being threatened by a neophyte candidate who topped the last senatorial elections.
Binay started his political career after being appointed as OIC-Mayor of Makati City by the late President Corazon C. Aquino in 1986. He was later reelected and held on to the position until 2010. Later in the year he was elected Vice-President of the Philippines. His six-year term will end next year.
Aside from being a lawyer having studied law at the University of the Philippines, Binay has also a masters degree from the University of Santo Tomas and a masters degree in national security administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines, among others.
The second candidate who has declared his intention to run is Manuel “Mar” Araneta Roxas II, the former secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government.
Roxas was a leading presidential candidate in the 2010 presidential elections when he gave way to the incumbent president Benigno Aquino whose popularity soared after the death of his mother, the late President Corazon C.Aquino. Roxas eventually ran for vice-president but lost to Binay.
Roxas started his career in politics when he ran for congressman in the First District of Capiz in 1993. His stint was cut off when then President Joseph Estrada asked him to join his Cabinet as Secretary of Trade and Industry. He was later elected to the senate where he served from 2004-2010.
As cabinet member of the Aquino administration, Roxas served as Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications and later succeeded Jessie Robredo as Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government.
Roxas finished grade school and high school at the Ateneo de Manila University. After graduating from high school, he went the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated with a degree in economics.
The latest to declare candidacy for the highest position in the land is Senator Grace Poe, who is an incumbent senator.
Poe is the daughter of the late actor and former presidential candidate Fernando Poe, Jr. and popular actress Susan Roces.
Poe spent much of her adulthood in the U.S. together with her own family. In 2004 she came back to the Philippines and got herself involved in politics right after his father’s death later that year. She campaigned for electoral reform in the country following his father’s loss in the 2004 presidential elections which she believed her father rightfully won.
In 2010, President Aquino appointed Poe as the Chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). Two years later she ran for senator and won with the most number of votes among the 12 newly- elected senators.
Before her appointment at MTRCB, Poe worked in the US as school teacher; She also worked at the United States Geological Survey and later at CSC Scientific, as product manager.
Poe attended grade school at the St.Paul College and high school at the Assumption College San Lorenzo. After high school, Poe enrolled in development studies at the University of the Philippines and later moved to Boston College in the US, where she graduated in 1991 with a degree in political science.
Last week, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who is doing well in the presidential survey ratings has announced that he isn’t running for president in next year’s elections but many believe that he will reverse his decision before the deadline for the filing of certificate of candidacy next month.
