SEN. Panfilo Lacson yesterday formally took his oath as chairman of the Partido para sa Demokratikong Reporma (Partido Reporma) in preparation for his planned candidacy for president in next year’s elections.
Lacson took his oath before party founder former Defense Secretary Renato de Villa, while former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez took his oath as party president.
He said a few and original Partido Reporma party members, including former Rep. Monsour del Rosario, witnessed the oath taking.
Lacson said he is very comfortable with Partido Reporma because his advocacies like “people’s sovereignty and democracy, decentralization and devolution of powers, social justice responsibility, strong economic foundation, environmental awareness, voters’ education, are are well-aligned with those of Reporma.
De Villa founded the party after he left Lakas-NUCD for failing to get the party nomination to run as president in the 1998 elections.
The party became dormant after the 2004 elections and was revived by Alvarez in 2020 after he was ousted as speaker in 2018.
According to its website, Partido Reporma has former LPGMA party-list Rep. Arnel Ty as its treasurer. No other information on the party officers is available.
Aside from de Villa, the party’s founding members include former Rep. Oscar Orbos, and the late former elections chair Haydee Yorac.
Lacson was a member of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) when he ran and won a seat in the Senate in 2001. In 2004, Lacson said that he, together with the late Agapito “Butch” Aquino (former LDP secretary general), Rep. Carlos Padilla, Rep. Rolex Suplico and others “broke away when the late FPJ [Fernando Poe Jr.] was adopted as its presidential candidate without a party convention.”
Lacson said his plan to take another shot at the presidency is a bigger challenge because the country’s next president will face gargantuan problems, like the ballooning foreign and national debts, pandemic response, and the issues on the West Philippine Sea, among others.
Lacson ran for president in the 2004 elections as an independent candidate. He placed third to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Poe.
Though eligible for another three-year term in the Senate, Lacson earlier said he will not seek re-election as he will run for president with Senate President Vicente Sotto III as his running mate.
Lacson and Sotto started doing the rounds in Luzon two week ago for consultations with various stakeholders on the possible solutions to the country’s problems. He said similar consultations will be made in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Lacson said Sotto has informed him that officials of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, of which Sotto is party chairman, are open to a dialogue with him after they file their certificates of candidacies in October.
