MANILA, Philippines — Former senators Panfilo Lacson and Vicente Sotto III and Sen. Lito Lapid filed their certificates of candidacy for the upcoming national and local elections (NLE) at the Manila Hotel on Wednesday.
Lacson and Sotto, who ran as a tandem in the last presidential elections, are seeking a return to the Senate, while Lapid is running for reelection.
Sotto thanked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the opportunity to serve in the Senate.
"We are running to help those that our country needs," he said.
Sotto said Senate Bill 244 or the Rightsizing the National Government Act, which he filed in 2019, has yet to be passed.
"Around 60 percent of the government every year, more than P6 trillion, goes to personal services and a big chunk of the 40 percent goes to that service. So almost nothing is left to distribute to the people, so rightsizing the government is the right thing to do," he said.
The veteran legislator also wants to push for the passage of his bills, such as the Anti-False Content Act (SB 9) and the 14th Month Pay Law (SB 10), as well as for hybrid elections.
Lacson, who ran for president in 2022 with Sotto as running mate, said he did not need to reinvent himself should he return to the Senate.
"I pledge to continue not availing of the pork barrel allocations in any shape or form. I will continue to be a vanguard, if you will, of the annual National Budget, to the best of my ability. I will help President [Ferdinand Marcos Jr.] pursue his administration's programs to benefit the majority of the Filipino people in alignment with his [State of the Nation Address] last year and in cadence with my personal credo, 'What is right must be kept right, what is wrong must be set right,'" he said.
Lapid, who is running for a fourth term in the Senate, wants to focus on agri-tourism, as well as having "one product, one town," as well as expanding free legal assistance or the "Lapid Law."
All three are part of the slate of the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas, which belongs to the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
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