Running mate is Doc Willie Ong
MANILA Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso will run for president in next year’s elections and a formal announcement will be made today, Julius Leonen, chief of the Manila Public Information Office, said yesterday.
Leonen also said Moreno’s running mate will be physician and 2019 senatorial candidate Willie Ong.
He did not give additional details.
Moreno is the third to announce their intention to join the presidential race, after Senators Panfilo Lacson and Emmanuel Pacquiao.
Opposition leader Vice President Leni Robredo has not made an announced a decision.
Talks about Moreno’s gunning for the presidency has been making the rounds amid his good showing in several surveys.
He has also gained favor from several groups for his leadership in addressing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the city, as well as his efforts to clean up Manila and provide low-cost housing to urban poor residents.
In a Pulse Asia survey last July, Moreno placed second among voters’ choice for president, after Davao City Mayor and presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio President Duterte has announced he is seeking the vice presidency next year.
Moreno last month resigned from the National Unity Party last month and joined Aksyon Demokratiko, the political party founded by the late senator Raul Roco in 1997.
Moreno is now the president of Aksyon Demokratiko.
His name is also among those being considered by the opposition coalition 1Sambayan.
Earlier, Moreno confirmed he had a meeting with Robredo and Pacquiao but declined to provide details, saying he is not at liberty to divulge what they had discussed.
Pacquiao on Sunday accepted the nomination of a faction of the ruling party PDP-Laban.
The other faction’s nominated presidential candidate, Sen. Christopher Go, declined the nomination.
Moreno recently criticized the Duterte administration, particularly its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with his call for an end to the wearing of face shields for those going outside their residence, as well as the slow distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
Moreno has spent close to half of his 46 years in public service, starting when he was elected councilor in Manila on 1998. He proceeded to serve for three terms as city councilor, ending his stint in the city council in 2007, when he run and won the vice mayoralty race in the city.
He served in that post until 2016 when he ran for the Senate but lost.
Moreno was then appointed by Duterte as chair of the North Luzon Railways Corporation and as undersecretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development for Luzon Affairs. He served in that post from May 2018 to October 2018.
In the 2019 elections, he beat former mayors Alfredo Lim and Joseph Estrada whom he previously served as vice mayor.
