The Gibo-Puno is the team to beat in the 2010 polls. After the National Executive Committee of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD chose Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro as their standard-bearer, members of the committee also expressed their preference to Interior Secretary Ronnie Puno as Teodoro’s running mate.
Puno thanked the national executive committee for declaring him as the party’s “preferred” candidate for the vice presidential post. “I will certainly do my very best so as not to fail the leadership and all our party mates.” He also added that the Teodoro-Puno tandem would be a “winning move.”
“Once the public gets to know more about this former bar topnotcher as well as his plans for the country in a post-Arroyo administration, it will become clearer in the voters’ minds that he is the country’s best bet for president come 2010,” Puno said in a statement.
Now that the Gibo-Ronnie is the sure tandem for the 2010 polls, where would this leave Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Bayani Fernando, who lost the party’s endorsement to Teodoro. After the announcement of the party, Fernando is still mum on his next move.
Fernando, who said that he should be chosen because of his loyalty to the party, has not yet issued an official statement on his future plans. He would not answer calls from the reporters who want his reaction when Lakas-Kampi secretary general announced the decision to choose Teodoro, who unlike him is just a newly inducted member of the party.
Close to Fernando said that the MMDA chairman is “disappointed and hurting” when the decision of the party was announced.
