Team PNoy busts UNA’s myth Pampanga is Arroyo bailiwick

Deputy House Speaker Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada. PHOTO BY RYAN LEAGOGO

MANILA, Philippines – Team PNoy has accused the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) of allegedly creating another “myth” when it claimed that   Pampanga is a bailiwick of former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

”Pampanga is no Arroyo country but PNoy country,” Team PNoy spokesman and Deputy Speaker    Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada said in a statement issued to reporters on Thursday. PNoy refers to President Benigno Aquino III.

Team PNoy is the umbrella coalition of the administration-backed senatorial slate for the May elections. It is composed of senatorial candidates from the Liberal Party, Akbayan, Nationalist People’s Coalition, Nacionalista Party and Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino Coalition.

During the 2010 elections, Tañada said, Pampanga voted for Aquino and his then running mate and now Interior Secretary Mar Roxas “in a manner so emphatic, so dominating.”

He cited the official canvas results which showed that Aquino was the runaway winner in the 10-cornered presidential derby with   327,666 votes or roughly 36.5 percent of the 914,787 total number of votes cast.

The then administration candidate Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro, whom Arroyo endorsed, only mustered 280,462 votes or 31.24 percent, Tañada pointed out.

The same was true, he said, in the vice presidential race, where Roxas garnered a massive 413, 016 votes or 47.20 percent, way ahead of now opposition stalwart Vice President Jejomar Binay who only got 220,357 or 25.18 percent of the total votes cast.

“So ano yung sinasabi nilang Arroyo country ang Pampanga (So why are they saying Pampanga is an Arroyo country)? This is another myth which the opposition is trying to spread just to get the votes of the Pampangueños,” Tañada said.

Even former president Joseph Estrada, who ran in the same presidential derby in 2010, Tañada said, was nowhere a factor after he garnered only 43,298 votes or 4.82 percent.

“So malinaw na ang Pampanga ay balwarte ni Presidente at hindi ni Arroyo o ng kung sinumang nagsasabing oposisyon (So clearly Pampanga is Aquino’s bailiwick and not Arroyo’s or anyone from the opposition,” the Team PNoy spokesman added.