Gringo Honasan announces Senate bid, to file COC on Monday


At a glance

  • Former veteran senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan will seek a return to the upper chamber in the 2025 mid-term elections.


20240306_121015(1).jpgFormer senator Gringo Honasan (Ellson Quismorio/ MANILA BULLETIN)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former veteran senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan will seek a return to the upper chamber in the 2025 mid-term elections. 

“I will file my certificate of candidacy (COC) on Monday,” Honasan said in a statement Friday, Oct. 4. He will be running under the Reform Party. 

Honasan, a former Philippine Army colonel, has been elected to the Senate four times. 

When he first entered politics in 1995, Honasan became the first independent candidate in Philippine history to win a Senate seat. 

If elected to the Senate again, Honasan vowed to advocate for the passage of a new Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Program law. 

“The existing AFP modernization program will expire in 2027, and a new law will be needed to sustain projects that are meant to further build up our national defense capabilities,” Honasan said. 

“We must continue the military’s modernization efforts, especially given the rising tensions in the West Philippine Sea,” stressed Honasan, a former chairperson of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security. 

Congress originally approved a 15-year AFP modernization program in 1995, with an initial funding of at least P50 billion for the first five years. 

In 2012, Congress revised and extended the program for another 15 years, with an initial funding of P75 billion for the first five years. 

President Marcos Jr. is seeking an additional P50 billion for the program in the proposed 2025 national budget, an increase from this year’s P10-billion allocation. 

Honasan was one of the founders of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), which played a key role in the 1986 People Power Revolution. 

He also previously served as secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).