MANILA, Philippines?The administration party has given up efforts to recruit Sen. Loren Legarda, and its search for a viable vice-presidential candidate who can help shore up the presidential candidacy of Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro is virtually back to zero.

Talks for a so-called ?dream coalition? with Legarda?s party, the Nationalist People?s Coalition, have also failed.

These issues and party desertions are expected to figure high on the agenda of Wednesday?s meeting of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD?s national executive committee which President Macapagal-Arroyo, the party chair, is expected to attend.

?There are no more talks with Loren. These were called off last week,? said Prospero Pichay, the party?s vice president for membership and accreditation, in a phone interview.

He said party members have decided ?not to pursue? the talks with Legarda anymore, and to pick Teodoro?s running mate from their own ranks.

Members of both parties, which have a working coalition in the House of Representatives, had been holding informal talks to convince Legarda, who is running for vice president, to become Teodoro?s running mate in 2010, and convince the NPC to coalesce with the ruling party for the polls.

But it appears that the Lakas-Kampi-CMD?s overtures were rejected even after NPC?s presumptive standard-bearer Sen. Francis Escudero quit the party, leaving Legarda free to run with someone else.

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said Legarda was more likely to lean toward Sen. Manuel Villar Jr., the Nacionalista Party presidential standard bearer who has also been wooing her, because Villar is a ?more winnable? candidate than Teodoro.

How this team-up will impact on the chances of the administration party?s presidential candidate, party leaders cannot say.

?Given the right time and the right message, we can always catch up with the opposition,? said Pichay, a former Surigao del Sur representative.

?If we?re able to get the right packaging, we?ll be as strong as Loren and other candidates,? he said.

The party also earlier failed to get Vice President Noli de Castro, who has chosen not to seek reelection.

?We will have until Nov. 19 to pick the VP,? Pichay said.

The coalition?s short list of vice-presidential candidates includes Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. and NPC members, Tourism Secretary Ace Durano and former Sen. Vicente Sotto III, according to Pichay, who himself rejected suggestions that he run for vice president.

The ruling coalition was also eyeing television actor and game show host Edu Manzano, but Manzano, the former Optical Media Board chairman, is about to join the senatorial line-up of the Liberal Party. He said earlier the ruling party not talked to him.

Manzano and Joey Lina, the ex-senator and former interior secretary who is running for governor of Laguna, will be sworn in as LP members on Thursday, according to a party official who asked not to be identified by name.

So the Lakas-Kampi-CMD national executive committee, its highest governing body, is convening on Wednesday still without a vice presidential candidate.

According to Pichay, the main agenda is to get the consensus of party officials and members on the wisdom of Ms Arroyo?s turning over her chairmanship of the party to Teodoro, in keeping with party tradition.

?Of course, we will talk about the strategies for 2010, but I can?t divulge this to you,? he said.