The Liberal Party (LP) will form a coalition ticket for the 2013 senatorial elections but allies of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be strictly off limits from the slate, according to Cavite Representative Joseph E.A. Abaya.
Abaya said it would be “untenable” for the administration party to take in candidates linked to Arroyo, who has been the main target of the Aquino administration’s anticorruption campaign.
“I don’t see that (the LP taking in an Arroyo candidate) happening. It is clear to us that we won’t accept anyone from the opposition. That is a very big issue with us,” said Abaya in an interview.
Abaya was reacting to reported plans of Vice President Jejomar Binay to form a coalition ticket consisting of his PDP-Laban (Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan) party and Arroyo’s Lakas-Kampi CMD (Christian Muslim Democrats) in 2013. This means PDP-Laban’s Senator Aquilino Pimentel III could run on the same slate as Lakas-Kampi’s Juan Miguel Zubiri, he said.
Abaya said taking in candidates closely identified with Arroyo would undermine Mr. Aquino’s anticorruption efforts.
Abaya said the LP had yet to sit down to decide who would be included in the administration slate. He said the LP could easily fill half of a 12-member slate. “There will be a lot of discussions on this but, in the end, it will all boil down to the President’s choice,” said Abaya.
Abaya’s statement reinforced observers’ views that there would be two administration slates in the 2013 elections—one to be led by the LP with Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II as the lead candidate and another to be led by candidates handpicked by Binay.
President Aquino himself declared in an interview that it would be difficult to have both LP and PDP-Laban candidates in the same slate. Roxas still has a pending election case against Binay, who handily beat the transportation secretary who was Aquino’s running mate in the 2010 elections. Gil Cabacungan