SURIGAO del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers expressed belief that his party mate, presidential sister Sen. Imee Marcos, will seek re-election under the administration’s senatorial slate in the 2025 midterm elections.
Barbers, a stalwart of the Nacionalista Party, said the NP is forging an alliance with President Marcos Jr.’s Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) by the end of the month.
“In the NP, we are in the process of firming up the alliance between NP and PFP,” he told a press conference.
“The presidential sister, Sen. Imee, is included because she belongs to NP. So, if we’re firming up alliances with the PFP, I am pretty sure if she’s an incumbent senator, I’m pretty sure she will be included in the slate,” he said in mixed Filipino and English.
Barbers said he does not know what issues may prevent the President’s elder sister from joining the slate “but my honest opinion is she’s included.”
Sen. Marcos joined the administration lineup when she ran for senator in 2019 during the time of former President Duterte.
While she is a sister of the President, the senator is a staunch an ally of Vice President Sara Duterte who quit the Marcos Cabinet last week to break away from her alliance with the President.
The Vice President’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, has been criticizing Marcos, and had called the President a drug user and addict.
Sen. Marcos has been having differences with her brother’s allies, mainly Speaker Martin Romualdez, their first cousin.
Late last month, Sen. Marcos said she will seek re-election in the midterm elections next year as she brushed aside rumors that she will run for mayor in the city of Manila or some other place.
The senator she said she was not sure if she will join the administration’s senatorial in next year’s polls, or if she be included in it. She said the number of those eyeing a Senate seat can reach as high as 50, based on the senatorial slates of different political parties.
