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Presidential aspirant and former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday welcomed Vice President Leni Robredo’s decision to run for president in the 2022 national elections.

Robredo and Marcos face each other in 2016 vice presidential race, wherein Robredo was delared a winner.

“Expected naman natin ‘yun eh. It’s not surprising. Hindi nakakagulat dahil matagal na niyang sinasabi na kung tatakbo ako, tatakbo rin siya,” Marcos said in a press conference in his bailiwick Ilocos Norte.

The former senator said having more presidential candidates would be “good for a healthy democracy.”

“Maraming kandidato, maganda ‘yan para maraming pagpipilian ang tao,” he said.

“We can give a whole range of choices as to policy, ideology, plans for the future, mas maganda ‘yung maraming iba’t ibang pinopropose para may pagpipilian ang tao (it is better to have different proposals to choose from),” he said.

Meanwhile, Senator Panfilo Lacson, who is also vying for the presidency, said that he and his candidate for vice president – Senate President Vicente Sotto III – have agreed to “rise on [their] own merits, and not to comment on [their] political rivals in the May 2022 elections.”

“We will focus only on presenting ourselves and our competencies to the electorate in an effort to get elected based on our own strengths, and not on the deficiencies of the others,” Lacson said in a statement.

“We will raise the level of discourse of the campaign and deal with issues rather than personalities,” he said.

“We intend to keep it that way, even as we encourage our supporters to follow our lead,” he said.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said VP Robredo’s right to seek any electoral post, it’s every right of a Filipino to stand for public office.

Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan will be the running mate of Vice President.

Pangilinan, 58, is president of once-ruling Liberal Party chaired by Robredo. The party’s chairman emeritus Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III succumbed to kidney failure last June.

The senator and Robredo have opposed several key policies of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, including the war on drugs, stance on the West Philippine Sea, and push for death penalty.

Opposition coalition 1Sambayan, which nominated Robredo for the post, recommended a different running mate, its convenor and retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said.

“Her choice is not what we recommended. But under our process, she can nominate somebody else other than our choice,” he said in a television interview.