SEN. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Thursday debunked critics belittling the ruling PDP Laban Party that helped install President Duterte in 2016 and predicting it will eventually end up as “a jeepney-sized party.”
Pimentel III reminded everyone that the PDP Laban party founded by his late father, Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. is not like “a country club” that only caters to the “rich and famous.”
The “PDP Laban is not a country club where only the rich and famous can become members as they please,” he said.
Pimentel III stressed that PDP Laban is a party guided by “ideology” and is fighting for clear advocacies; it is not based on personalities and would not mind returning to its lean but mean membership for as long as they all shared the same principles the party had stood for since its founding.
He reminded critics that that while it was belittled by critics as a party with members enough to fit in a tricycle, it was able to install President Duterte to power in the last national elections.
“Yes, PDP Laban started like a tricycle filled with members but it produced a President in 2016 and many more want to hitch a ride on the tricycle or jeep of PDP Laban,” Pimentel added, partly in Filipino.
The divisions in the party – with one faction led by Pimentel and party president Sen. Manny Pacquiao and another led by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, the vice chairman, with backing from Duterte – are seen to deepen on Saturday (July 17) when the Cusi faction convenes a PDP-Laban assembly, which Pimentel-Pacquiao deem “unauthorized,” but which Duterte reportedly will attend. They insist such an assembly may only be called in September by Pacquiao.
At a forum on Wednesday, Pimentel said, “We don’t even recognize the authority to call that meeting to order, and then we will be attending it? Then they will use us as an excuse to make everything legal. Then when you go there, the voting delegates are already padded.”
Pimentel the executive vice chairman, added: “Let’s vet the voting delegates. They’re important — the voting delegate — especially to settle a controversial issue,” he added.
Velasco backs Sara
Meanwhile, Speaker Lord Allan Velasco on Thursday vowed his “all-out and unconditional support” for Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio should she finally decide to run for president in the May 2022 national elections.
Velasco, a close friend of the presidential daughter, made a statement after Duterte-Carpio’s recent statement that she’s now open to the idea of running for president next year.
“I will support her (Duterte-Carpio) all the way,” Velasco declared, as he accompanied the mayor during her trip to Zamboanga City for the signing of the sister city agreement between Davao and Zamboanga, and to visit the survivors of the deadly C-130 military plane crash.
“I’ve said in the past, both in public and in private, that Mayor Inday Sara is very qualified to be the country’s next president. She can unify us and lead us forward,” she said.
An official of Hugpong ng Pagbabago, a regional party formed by Duterte-Carpio, said the Davao City mayor will decide on running for the presidency in October.
During her recent visit to Cebu province, Duterte-Carpio said she’s now open to gun for the post currently held by her father, President Duterte.
She, however, clarified that there is no final decision yet.