Vice President Leni Robredo open to 2022 run

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo is not closing the door on running again for public office after her term expires in 2022.

“I no longer want to make a final word because before, I already took back what I’ve said, twice,” Robredo said in an interview with CNN Philippines on Friday.

Robredo said she was reluctant to run for a congressional seat in 2013 and for vice president in 2016.

“When I was being asked to run in 2013, I said, ‘over my dead body,’ but I ran. When they were pushing me for the vice presidency, I said, “I will not do it,” she said.

Robredo in previous interviews said she has no plans of running for the presidency in 2022.

Robredo entered politics after the unexpected death of her husband, former interior secretary Jesse Robredo, in a plane crash in 2012.

She is facing an electoral protest filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whom she defeated in the May 2016 polls by slim margin of more than 200,000 votes.

The manual recount of votes from three pilot provinces covered by Marcos’ protest – namely Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental – will start on March 19.

Marcos contested the results in 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clustered precincts, covering 27 provinces and cities.