BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR and RAYMOND AFRICA
SEN. Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao was “automatically expelled” from the ruling party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) after he filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) for president under the Progressive Movement for the Devolution of Initiatives (PROMDI), the party’s faction led by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said yesterday.
According to Melvin Matibag, secretary general of the Cusi faction, the party’s national executive committee met on October 1 and issued a resolution that approved Pacquiao’s automatic expulsion from the administration party in accordance with its constitution.
Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, who leads the other faction together with Pacquiao, said the latter is allowed to file his candidacy under PROMDI based on the alliance between PDP and PROMDI.
He also questioned the Cusi faction’s move of allowing Sen. Christopher Go to file his COC as vice president after he was nominated by the faction as its presidential candidate.
Pacquiao filed on Friday, the first day of filing of COCs, together with his vice presidential candidate, Rep. Lito Atienza of the Buhay party-list group, former mayor of Manila.
Go filed his COC for vice president on Saturday, accompanied by President Duterte who announced he has dropped his plan to run for vice president in the May 2022 elections, and said he has decided to retire from politics.
The Cusi faction has asked the Commission on Elections to declare the Pimentel faction as unauthorized representative of the party. The petition may be decided on next month, according to the Comelec.
Pimentel said Pacquiao his COC under PROMDI “in order to consolidate his support base and alliance partners.”
Also invoking the national executive committee, Pimentel said it has issued Resolution No. 12 which allowed Pacquiao to use the certificate of nomination and acceptance (CONA) of PROMDI because Pacquiao “is already known to be identified with PDP-Laban.”
Also, he said, the PDP-Laban has forged an alliance with PROMDI and the People’s Champ Movement political party, called “MP3 Alliance,” wherein alliance partners also proclaimed Pacquiao as their presidential candidate.
“He (Pacquiao) was officially nominated and proclaimed as presidential candidate also by PROMDI and their national assembly. Hence everything is normal and in order per our party constitution. The ‘issue’ being propagated by Cusi+Matibag is a figment of their imagination which they want to use for their own political propaganda,” Pimentel said.
Matibag said Section 6, Article VII of the PDP-Laban Constitution states that the filing by a member of a COC under another political party is a ground for automatic expulsion from PDP Laban.
He also said the supposed alliance of the Pimentel-Pacquiao faction with PROMDI and the People’s Champ Movement (PCM), or MP3, is only aimed at confusing the supporters of the legitimate PDP-Laban party.
“Senator Pacquiao claims that he is the legitimate President of PDP Laban and even called his own National Assembly where he accepted their so-called proclamation as presidential candidate and yet he is running for president under PROMDI. Let’s call a spade a spade. If that is not disloyalty, betrayal, and abandonment of PDP-Laban, I don’t know what is,” he said.
Matibag also said that with “Pacquiao’s disloyalty, abandonment of, and expulsion from PDP Laban,” he is confident the Comelec would rule in favor of their petition.
RETIREMENT DOUBTED
Sen. Richard Gordon said Duterte’s pronouncement he will retire from politics should not be taken seriously because the President is known to twist the truth.
Gordon, in an interview with radio dzBB, noted that in September 2015, when Duterte was still Davao City mayor, he said he will retire from politics but did otherwise and substituted for original presidential candidate Martin Dino in the 2016 elections.
He said the President’s lies also results in the proliferation of trolls who sway people into believing lies.
Supporters of presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio remain hopeful she will change her mind and seek the presidency.
Deputy speaker Bernadatte Herrera, a spokesman for the Hugpong para kay Sara movement led by Speaker Lord Allan Velasco, said the President’s announcement he is retiring from politics paves the way for Sara to seek the highest post of the land.
Meanwhile, Vice President Leni Robredo’s camp appealed to the public to be more patient as it said the Vice President is set to make her political plans known before the last day of the filing of COCs on October 8.
Robredo’s spokesman Ibarra Gutierrez said Robredo, herself, will announce the decision before Friday to set the record straight and avoid speculations.
“The VP, herself, will announce her decision. We won’t have to speculate and make assumptions. It’s just a few more days, she’ll announce her decision. Let’s just trust her and be patient,” Gutierrez said in Filipino on the Vice President’s radio program on RMN.
Gutierrez made the statement after reports said Robredo accepted opposition coalition 1Sambayan’s nomination to be the opposition’s standard-bearer in the 2022 national elections.
He was reacting to the statement of 1Sambayan convenor former education secretary Armin Luistro who later clarified that he only made known his personal belief that Robredo will eventually join the presidential race.
While the Vice President is taking long to decide, Gutierrez assured the public she will stick to her decision and will not back out from it whatever happens.
Robredo has said that while she is pressed to make a decision before the October 8 deadline, she still has to exhaust every means to unite all opposition groups before deciding is she will make a presidential run.
Gutierrez also dismissed claims that Robredo will seek a local post in Camarines Sur after she transferred her voter’s registration from Naga City to Magarao, Camarines Sur, saying whatever options she has in the local level will have to wait because “she has yet to reach a clear decision for a national post.” — With Wendell Vigilia
