MORE UPDATE! Noynoy Sisters Raised More Than 100K Contributions

Sisters of Sen. Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" Aquino III will meet with Negros-based volunteers working for his presidential campaign in Bacolod City Sunday. A report on Visayan Daily Star said the volunteers' meeting will be at the Santuario de La Salle in Bacolod City.

Former Negros Occidental Gov. Daniel Lacson Jr. said Ballsy Aquino-Cruz and Pinky Aquino-Abellada will represent their brother at the Federation of Urban Poor in Negros Occidental convention at the BAYS Center. Lacson said the sisters will listen to the concerns and recommendations of the various urban poor groups in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental at the BAYS Center. They will then go to the Bishop's House to see Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra.

On Sunday afternoon, a meeting with the volunteers at a forum on “Continuing the Spirit of EDSA People Power" Sunday afternoon will be hosted by the Institute for Negros Development of La Salle at the Santuario.Aquino had announced he will run for president under the Liberal Party.He has enjoyed a surge in popularity since his mother former President Corazon Aquino died Aug. 1, and when people marked the 26th death anniversary of his father former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. - GMANews.TV [09/20/2009 02:29 PM]

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BACOLOD CITY—The sisters of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III have shed their fiercely guarded privacy to support his presidential bid and were greeted with an outpouring of love and support in Negros Occidental Sunday.

From an urban poor convention at the Bacolod Arts, Youth and Sports Center to a meeting of a “yellow army” of volunteers at the University of St. La Salle, Pinky Aquino-Abellada and Balsy Aquino-Cruz received hugs, pledges of support and financial contributions from people calling for change.

The sisters, accompanied by former Negros Occidental Gov. Daniel Lacson Jr., were blessed by Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra whom they thanked for praying for their mother, the late President Corazon Aquino. They met with Carmelite sisters who also prayed for them.

Assuring everyone that an official announcement will be made Monday, Abellada and Cruz called on their audience to support the tandem of their brother Noynoy and Sen. Mar Roxas for 2010.

Roxas is expected to officially announce his candidacy for vice president under the Aquino ticket Monday.

“Both of them are very decent people. They really get along. They know each other well. I think they will make a good team,” Cruz said.

“It was really heroic for Mar to give up his presidential bid for Noynoy,” Abellada said.

Cruz admitted that she and her sister are media shy and going public for their brother is “pretty difficult.”

And while they were initially against his running for the presidency, “we told him that once he decides, we will support him. Like my mom, he feels that this is more than ambition. This is the time for him to answer the call of the people because they want change,” Cruz said. “So we (sisters) are doing our share to support him.”

Cruz said they already met with Aquino volunteers in Davao. After Bacolod, they will be in Bohol today to rally support for their brother. They also wanted to thank the people for praying for their mother as she battled cancer and for condoling with the family after she died.

“We will go to places where Noynoy cannot go. He is a bachelor; he has no wife to help him so we said we will help,” she said.

The sisters said it was deja vu or 1986 all over again. When their mother campaigned for the presidency, people came out to support her. They were getting the same response, they said.

Members of the Federation of Urban Poor in Negros Occidental Sunday presented the sisters with milk cans and plastic bottles filled with coins and messages of love—their contribution to the “Piso-piso para kay Noynoy” campaign. [By Carla Gomez, Inquirer Visayas, First Posted 08:36:00 09/21/2009]

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Two of Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's sisters were able to raise P106,000 for his impending presidential campaign during their visit to Negros Occidental over the weekend, a Liberal Party stalwart said Monday.

Former LP president Florencio "Butch" Abad said Pinky Aquino-Abellada and Ballsy Aquino-Cruz went to the province to meet urban poor families there but the families instead contributed money for Aquino's forthcoming campaign. "That was what former (Negros Occidental) Governor (Daniel) Bitay Lacson reported to me. That (P106,000) was from a group pf 400 volunteers gathered at the La Salle Bacolod," Abad said.

He added the amount was different from the piso-piso campaign of the Negros Federation of Urban Poor Organizations.The two Aquino sisters are now in Bohol, Abad said during the LP event at Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan where Sen. Manuel "Mar" Roxas II announced his acceptance of Aquino's offer to be his running mate in the 2010 elections.

According to Abad, Aquino and Roxas would go to Mindanao - particularly to Davao del Norte, Davao City, Bukidnon, Cagayan de Oro, and Iligan City - to talk with the people there on September 25 to 27. Roxas was being groomed to be the LP's standard bearer until clamor for Aquino to run for the highest elected post emerged following the death of his mother, former President Corazon Aquino, last August 1 after more than a year of battling colon cancer. Aquino announced his presidential plans on September 9, more than a week after Roxas gave way to his party-mate following a spiritual retreat and consultation with the some groups. - GMANews.TV [Amita Legazpi, 9-21-2009 3:57PM]