This is a list of candidates in the 2016 Philippine presidential and vice presidential elections. +For President For Vice President / Running MateWinning PresidentWinning Vice PresidentPreviousNextJejomar BinayGregorio HonasanRodrigo DuterteLeni RobredoCandidates in the 2010 Philippine presidential electionCandidates in the 2022 Philippine presidential electionMiriam Defensor SantiagoBongbong MarcosRodrigo DuterteAlan Peter CayetanoGrace PoeFrancis EscuderoMar RoxasLeni RobredoN/AAntonio Trillanes
Candidates for President These are people who submitted candidacies, and were allowed to run by the Commission on Elections and to be included in ballots.
Jejomar Binay
When he was questioned by the media at the Coconut Palace in September 2011, Vice President Jejomar Binay (UNA) confirmed his plans to run for president.
By May 2014, Binay began his search for a running mate. As his potential running mate Senator Jinggoy Estrada in jail due to his implication in the PDAF scam, Binay's offers were declined by JV Ejercito, Manny Villar (via wife Cynthia Villar), Vilma Santos (via husband Ralph Recto), Mar Roxas, Grace Poe, Rodrigo Duterte and Joseph Estrada. Binay's daughter Abigail, also the Representative from Makati, said that Binay would accept anyone as his running mate except for Antonio Trillanes, and that she prefers Grace Poe, however Sen. Bongbong Marcos was the most preferred by UNA officials to be his running mate. In a 2015 Independence Day (June 12) speech in Iloilo, President Aquino said that he could only offer Binay the conduct of a clean and honest election, but not an outright endorsement.
A few days later, on June 22, Binay resigned from the Aquino cabinet, both as presidential adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers' concerns and as chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, but did not say why. Two days later, Binay addressed the public from his Coconut Palace offices, branding the current administration as "manhid at palpak" (insensitive and bumbling), but did not mention Aquino by name. He also accused the administration of committing sins against him and the people. A photo of Vice President Jejomar Binay has been circulating in social networking sites, wherein he is seen avoiding the muddy ground of an open field by passing through a makeshift bridge while donning his boy scout uniform. A photo of Vice President Jejomar Binay has been circulating in social networking sites, wherein he is seen avoiding the muddy floor of an open field by passing through a makeshift bridge while donning his boy scout uniform.The post has gained mixed reactions from netizens, and has received almost 1,200 shares and nearly a hundred comments as of posting. One online user commented that such an action from one of the country's highest officials does not make him qualified to hold his post. "And this is the vice president of the Philippines? This guy is not even fit to be a cub scout. So pathetic!" he said. On the other hand, another user M. J. said, "OK lang yan. Syempre kahit tayo ayaw din naman nating maputikan ang sapatos natin... [Mag pasalamat na lang tayo na pumunta siya dyan, pero Hindi ko talaga siya iboboto bilang presidente." ("That's OK. Of course, even us would not want our shoes to get muddy. Let us just be thankful that he went there, but I still would not vote for him to become president.").
Miriam Defensor Santiago
In a press conference on July 2, 2014, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago (People's Reform Party) revealed she was suffering from Stage 4 lung cancer and she might run as president for the third time if it goes into remission. A Magsaysay Awardee, the Nobel Prize of Asia, and the Iron Lady of Asia, she was widely believed to have won the 1992 Philippine Presidential Elections, but lost after hours of blackout during the counting of votes. She once again run for president in 1998, but lost after black propaganda was used against her campaign. She then run for the Senate in the following elections and won with a landslide victory, becoming the most popular female senator and one of the most respected senators in Philippine history with the highest number of laws and bills authored and passed up to this day.
By November 2014, Santiago, in a tweet, announced that "In the 2016 presidential elections, when I am rid of my lung cancer, I intend to claim the presidency I won in 1992." In a letter to the Senate, Santiago said that more than 90% of the cancer cells have regressed.
Santiago announced her candidacy for president in the launch of her book Stupid is Forever on October 13, 2015. She will run under the People's Reform Party, the same party in which she ran under during her 1992 and 1998 presidential campaigns. Days later, Santiago announced that Senator Bongbong Marcos would be her vice presidential running mate. Her platform stands on the effective and efficient upholding and implementation of national and state-recognized international laws, enhancement of the agriculture industry with a focus on irrigation and farm-to-market roads, enhancing all seaports and airports in the country, creating at least one major government project in all provinces and all regions in the Philippines, building and highlighting the country's diplomatic affairs in the international level while skyrocketing the country's defense capabilities, and eradicating graft and corruption, which she believes to be the cause of poverty and inefficiency in the country.
Rodrigo Duterte
The 2016 presidential campaign of Rodrigo Duterte, the incumbent mayor of Davao City, was announced on November 21, 2015. Duterte had repeatedly refused to run for several months and turned down other presidential and vice-presidential aspirants' offers to be his running mate, including Jejomar Binay, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Bongbong Marcos.
In September 2015, Duterte declined Miriam Defensor-Santiago's offer to be her running mate and said that instead of being the running mate to Senator Santiago, he wanted Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. to be Santiago's running mate. In March 2015, Lakas–CMD national president Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said that his party is preparing for the 2016 elections; Danilo Suarez also remarked that they are convincing Teodoro to go out of retirement to run anew. However, Santiago chose Bongbong Marcos as her running mate in October 2015.
Duterte said on a Baguio federalism forum that he'd run for president "if only to save the republic." Duterte cited the need of about 10 to 15 billion pesos as a campaign war chest that's keeping him from running. Days later, Duterte "re-entered" PDP–Laban; he maintained he never left the party, but had to stand in a local party banner in the 2013 local election to ensure victory. PDP–Laban president Aquilino Pimentel III later said that Duterte is among his party's options in nominating for the presidency, noting that the party's position on federalism coincides with Duterte's advocacy.
In August 2015, while at a meeting with military officers, Duterte spoke with Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison. Duterte said that he told Sison that he would run for president if the CPP's armed wing, the New People's Army, abandons its over-40-year insurgency, saying "Armed struggle as a means to achieve change is passée in the modern world we are living in today,". Duterte disclosed that Sison was asking him his plans for 2016, and told him that he didn't have plans yet.
When making hints to the media of his possible intent to run for the presidency he promised to abolish Congress altogether in favor of a parliament, if he ever wins.
Grace Poe
Grace Poe's surprising first-place finish in the 2013 Senate election as an independent made her a likely contender for the presidency but she dismissed any plans of running in April 2014, saying she was not considering "anything higher at this point."
On President Aquino's state visit to Canada in May 2015, the president disclosed that he had met with Poe prior to the trip, although he didn't say on what the meeting was for. A couple of days later, Poe confirmed that she did meet with Aquino. Poe said that "We discussed his intention to choose a candidate who, first and foremost, has the trust of the nation, and, secondly, has the potential to win in the election, in order to sustain the reforms especially against corruption and the pro-poor programs of the government." Poe expects more meetings with Aquino in June.
On June 2, UNA interim president Toby Tiangco, responding to calls for Jejomar Binay to "come clean" on his corruption allegations, said in a press conference that Poe is not qualified to run either for president or vice president after citing her certificate of candidacy in the 2013 Senate election which stated that she is a resident for six years and six months; adding three years for the 2016 election, nine years and six months or six months short mandated by the constitution. Two days later, before a Senate session, Poe said that she wrote "six years and six months" because it was in April 2006 that her home in the United States was sold. Poe, who had been a resident of the United States for 13 years, returned to the Philippines after her father Fernando Poe, Jr. died in December 2004. She said that she had proof that she had been living in the Philippines since February 2005. She said, that despite being a congressman for Navotas, Tiangco lives elsewhere, and that her decision on whether to run in 2016 is "50%" sure. Poe also observed that the attacks from UNA only began after she signed the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee report recommending plunder and graft cases against Binay.
On September 16, at a gathering at the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City, Poe announced her intention to seek the presidency, saying that "No one person or group has a monopoly on a straight path advocacy" of President Aquino, a shot against Aquino's party's nominee Roxas, who is advocating for continuation of the "Daang Matuwid" (straight path) advocacy of Aquino; while also hitting the Administration programs. This resulted in the Palace to question their Daang Matuwid advocacy are contrary to their speeches.
On December 1, the COMELEC's second division had formally disqualified Poe from running as president in the 2016 elections and cancelled her filed Certificate of Candidacy for not failing to meet with citizenship and residency requirements. The division, was voted 3–0, in favor of the petition filed by Atty. Estrella Elamparo to disqualify Poe. The decision stated that Poe had failed to comply with the 10-year residency requiremement, mandatory for a presidential candidate.
On 8 March 2016, the Supreme Court determined that Poe is a natural-born Filipino and she returned to the Philippines from the U.S. in 2004, therefore she meets the 10-year residency requirement to run in the presidential election. On April 9, 2016, the Supreme Court declared their ruling as final and executory and she is qualified to become president.
Mar Roxas
Senate President Franklin Drilon, when describing the Liberal Party's plans for Interior Secretary Mar Roxas' in 2016, told the media in January 2013 that "so far as the LP is concerned, [and] in so far as I am concerned, we believe that he is best qualified for 2016." Two years later, Drilon told DZIQ AM radio that Roxas had expressed his interest internally within the party. Several Liberal Party stalwarts had by then expressed that Roxas should declare his intentions at that time, with some such as Budget Secretary Florencio Abad suggesting that Roxas may slide down to run for the vice presidency again.