Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III (Screengrab / PRIB)
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III disclosed on Wednesday that he was “no longer a personal ally” of President Rodrigo Duterte, having cut all ties with him since the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) splintered into two factions over election infighting.
“I am no longer in touch personally with the president,” Pimentel told the Inquirer in a Viber message.
“We do not communicate with each other; hence we don’t discuss any government program or policy or any matter at all. That’s all,” the son of the late PDP founder and former Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. said.
It was an unceremonious end to the relationship between Duterte and the younger Pimentel, who was once the president’s most powerful ally in the Senate before the latter yielded the Senate presidency to Sen. Vicente Sotto III under a term-sharing deal in 2018.
Pimentel and core PDP-Laban stalwarts, on the other hand, have rallied behind Sen. Manny Pacquiao, who is carrying the banner of the Promdi party to avoid the legal complications of a disputed PDP-Laban leadership.
Against party’s ideals
On Tuesday, the rival faction within the PDP-Laban, composed of the president’s loyalists led by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, declared their support for former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., immediately raising the hackles of the group led by Pimentel.
He noted that his father had founded PDP, which later merged with former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.’s Bayan party, to oppose the rule of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
“In Germany for example, a political party formed to oppose Adolf Hitler will definitely not support an Adolf Hitler Jr.,” Pimentel said as he rebuked the actions of the Cusi group.
But veteran political operator Lito Banayo, who advised Duterte during his 2016 campaign, acknowledged on Tuesday that the President never truly embodied his own party’s ideals.
“The problem with our party system and our political system is that the personality of the candidate is what prevails,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday, noting that voters elected Mr. Duterte on his own merit and his party only came along for the ride.
By ‘accident’
Banayo, who now manages the presidential campaign of Manila Mayor Francisco Domagoso, recalled that Mr. Duterte’s 2016 run under the PDP-Laban banner happened by “accident.”
He revealed that the then Davao City mayor had originally wanted to be the standard-bearer of the Nacionalista Party for sentimental reasons as his late father was an official of the party’s Davao chapter.
The problem, according to Banayo, was at that time, Nacionalista had three members angling for the nomination.
“So I do not know whether the President values the [PDP-Laban] party that much. I’m not too sure about that,” Banayo told reporters.
In an ANC interview on Wednesday, Pimentel vowed to “cleanse” PDP-Laban of usurpers after the May 9 elections, even if it meant reducing the party membership to a fraction of its peak force.
“If we will be reduced to a very small number, so be it. But we will have to rebuild the party,” he said.
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