Former Senator Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan II announced Friday his intention to join the 2025 senatorial race potentially reuniting with his former colleagues in the so-called ‘Macho Bloc’ of the Senate.
“I will file my certificate of candidacy on Monday,” Honasan said in a press statement emailed to media organizations.
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,” he said.
“We must continue the military’s modernization efforts, especially given the rising tensions in the West Philippine Sea,” Honasan, a former chairperson of the Senate committee on national defense and security, noted.
A former Philippine Army colonel, 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.
Honasan has been elected to the Senate four times. He was part of the group of senators dubbed the ‘Macho Bloc,’ which include former Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Panfilo Lacson, and Manny Pacquiao. All of them are seeking fresh legislative mandates as members of the 20th Congress.
Sotto, Lacson and Pacquiao secured the endorsement of President Marcos as part of his 12-person senatorial slate under the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas (Alliance for the New Philippines) coalition.
When he first entered politics in 1995, Honasan became the first independent candidate in Philippine history to win a Senate seat. He also previously served as Secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
According to Honasan, 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 is seeking an additional P50 billion for the program in the proposed 2025 national budget, an increase from this year’s P10-billion allocation.
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