MANILA, Philippines?He never even said ?hi? or ?hello.?

Speaker Prospero C. Nograles is ?seriously considering? dumping the ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD and its standard-bearer Gilbert ?Gibo? Teodoro and joining Nacionalista Party candidate Sen. Manuel ?Manny? Villar Jr.

Nograles griped about a Teodoro snub during a recent visit to Davao City, where the Speaker is now running for mayor, and the absence of civility that he said was causing a ?total disarray? in the administration coalition barely a month before the May 10 elections.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s political adviser, Prospero Pichay, said the departure of Nograles would be a ?serious blow,? but added that ?the loss of one man will not lead to the party?s disintegration.?

?It won?t affect my campaign because he had never aggressively supported me,? said Teodoro, a former defense secretary who is lagging in poll surveys behind Sen. Benigno Aquino III, Villar and former President Joseph Estrada.

?Wala naman (Nothing),? Villar said on Sunday night when asked in Koronadal, South Cotabato, where he was campaigning, if there were negotiations with Nograles. ?I can say that many of the local leaders choose a new leader when the term of a president is about to end.?

?Normally that would be a very serious blow to the administration party,? Aquino said. ?I understand he is not being castigated at least publicly for doing that act. Is that tantamount to saying that going to Gibo or going to Manny Villar is OK with the Palace??

?Thank you,? said Sen. Manuel ?Mar? Roxas II, Aquino?s running mate in the Liberal Party. ?That?s a good development for us because this proves the Villaroyo conspiracy, right?? Roxas was referring to rumors that Ms Arroyo was secretly supporting Villar.

But Nograles? chief of staff, Gil Bugaoisan, denied that Nograles was ordered by the President to support Villar. ?That?s absolutely not true, up to now the Speaker has not talked to President Arroyo about his plan to resign. He?s just fed up with the way Lakas-Kampi is running the campaign,? said Bugaoisan.

Party out of control

Nograles is reportedly smarting over the ruling party?s appointment of an ally of his rival, Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, as point man in his home city and being kept out of the loop of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD?s affairs even though he is the coalition?s vice chair and a senior member of its national advisory board.

?Even as a senior officer of the party, I hardly know what?s happening because they make decisions without the courtesy of even briefing us,? Nograles said in a statement.

?Now what?s the use of being with the administration party? I don?t even get any text saying hi or hello from our party standard-bearer?? he said. ?The administration party is out of control. It is in total disarray contrary to what is being bandied about in the media.?

Nograles revealed that his local campaign team had already thrown its support to NP vice presidential candidate Sen. Loren Legarda in lieu of Lakas-Kampi-CMD?s Edu Manzano but that he had yet to make up his mind on the presidential race.

?I might and I might not. We can run the campaign of the Team Nograles without any help from any party but I think that Manny Villar is a viable option because of his non-association with those involved in human rights violations in Davao City.

Genocide in Davao

?I find comfort in the fact that under his administration, there is a good chance that all these genocide-like summary executions in Davao City will finally end. You cannot expect that from Nonoy (Aquino) because he is with Duterte, the main suspect of all these killings,? Nograles added.

In his list of complaints, Nograles felt slighted that Teodoro did not call him up before he visited Davao City and he only called up when he needed Nograles to provide warm bodies for his rallies.

He said that not only was he not informed or consulted when Teodoro resigned as party chair, he was not invited by the party head to attend the executive committee meeting to elect his replacement.

?I?m a senior party member and they only want to use me for their convenience? I think that is foul. I have been a good soldier but I also deserve some respect,? Nograles said.

He also did not like the party?s move to appoint Madeline ?Bebot? Marfori, the presidential assistant for special projects, as its point man in Davao City even though she was a staunch supporter of Duterte, who is running for vice mayor.

Duterte?s daughter Sara is running against Nograles for mayor of Davao City.

Clear and present danger

Nograles claimed that Marfori was a supporter of Aquino, just like the Dutertes.

He also felt bad that the administration did not even provide help in ensuring security to his campaign volunteers. Duterte controls security forces in the area.

?They are killing our campaign volunteers and there is clear and present threat on my life by the NPA (communist New People?s Army) under Kumander Parago who is a known ally of the Dutertes but I?m not getting any help. It would be better that we do this all by ourselves than expect something that ain?t gonna happen,? Nograles said.

Pichay expressed sadness over the decision of Nograles to bolt Lakas but he said the party had to respect it.

?I am sure he decided based on what he thought was best for his political battle in Davao,? Pichay said.

Ms Arroyo?s deputy spokesperson Gary Olivar also expressed sadness over the Speaker?s decision. Olivar said that the administration continued to stand behind Teodoro whom he described as ?the best man for the job.?

Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza told reporters that he had not talked to Ms Arroyo about Nograles. He said the party should fix the problem. ?This is not the time for a major political party to break up just like that.?

?Not born yesterday?

Speaking to reporters in Cabanatuan City, Teodoro said he had been expecting Nograles to leave the party. ?I was not born yesterday, I?ve been hearing that a long time ago,? he said.

But Teodoro, a bar topnotcher and Harvard-trained lawyer, wondered why Nograles had not raised his gripes to the party earlier when it could have looked for solutions to his problems.

He also pointed out that Nograles could have done something about the ?extrajudicial killings? in Davao City as House Speaker. ?He was in the position to help reinforce criminal justice there.?

Teodoro added that though he was friends with Duterte since 1991, he never approached the Davao City mayor for an endorsement because of his loyalty to Nograles and the party.

?Mayor Duterte and I have been friends because I was one of his lawyers in his fight for justice in 1991 but I did not ask him to endorse me because of my loyalty to my party,? Teodoro disclosed. The Dutertes are running under the Liberal Party.

More defections?

Teodoro also said his camp was prepared for more defections from the party in the coming weeks, but he remained confident that his network of volunteers in the provinces would help deliver votes for the entire Lakas-Kampi-Christian Muslim Democrats slate on May 10.

Earlier, former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said he had predicted the exodus of party members because of the growing cracks in the Lakas-Kampi-CMD, comparing its fate to the doomed Titanic.

?This is a major explosion,? De Venecia told the Inquirer by telephone yesterday.

He said Nograles? move was a signal that the merger of the administration parties was a failure from the start.

?I?m working on getting back Lakas. Just give me time,? he said. With reports from Jocelyn R. Uy, Christine O. Avendaño, Philip C. Tubeza, Nikko Dizon, Michael Lim Ubac, Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon, and Jeffrey M. Tupas and Nico Alconaba, Inquirer Mindanao