MANILA, Philippines — A possible split within the ruling PDP-Laban party will have “serious implications” for the party in the 2022 polls and will certainly help the opposition, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said Wednesday.
Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon during the Kapihan media forum
“This development will have, to me, serious implications in the 2022 elections, the ruling party will be split,” Drilon, a veteran lawmaker, said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay media forum.
“It will not harm the opposition to have the split. It will certainly help ‘pag nahati ang administration given all the resources given all the troll farms, given the social media expense and resources that they have, certainly a split will help the opposition,” Drilon added.
The rift between PDP-Laban party chairman, President Rodrigo Duterte and party acting president, Senator Manny Pacquiao seemed to have widened after the Chief Executive on Monday night warned that he would campaign against Pacquiao should the latter fail to name corrupt agencies in the current administration.
The President claimed that the senator had supposedly said that the current administration is “three times more corrupt” than the previous one.
“I am not questioning your ability, intellectually or what,” Duterte had said. “But if you can’t do that, I will be after you every day. I will expose you as a liar.
Pacquiao accepted Duterte’s challenge, telling the President that he is not a liar. He started off by claiming of corruption at the Department of Health.
But Drilon said it would take the opposition “a lot of work” to take advantage of a possible split within the ruling party.
“Certainly it will not harm us. It will not harm the Liberal Party, but it takes a lot of work for us to take advantage of it. Firstly, the opposition must have only one candidate,” the minority leader, who serves as vice chairman of the Liberal Party, said.
“No one in the opposition has taken yet any concrete step, maybe it’s too early. Once there is a consensus to whom the principal player will be in the opposition, then it is the role of whoever is anointed to try to consolidate the ranks of the opposition and that includes only having one candidate for that position,” he added.