UNA says LP cheated FPJ but Grace Poe doesn’t buy it

A SPOKESMAN of Vice President Jejomar Binay has warned Senator Grace Poe against running under the Liberal Party, which allegedly contributed to the defeat of her father during the 2004 elections.

“If Senator Poe runs with the Liberal Party, she would be running with people who tormented and who cheated her late father,” lawyer JV Bautista, a spokesman of Binay said in a press briefing Thursday at the Senate.

Bautista said some members of the Liberal Party used to be members of the Lakas-NUCD, which is the political party of former President and now Representative Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo.

Arroyo defeated Fernando Poe Jr. in the 2004 elections, which were allegedly marred by widespread fraud.

Bautista said the people who helped in the presidential campaign of Poe’s father are now with the camp of the Vice President.

“Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the Vice President felt that if Senator Grace Poe would run, the most natural people for her to go with is the people who helped her father,” he said.

According to him, Poe should finish first her six-term mandate as a senator before running for a higher office.

Responding to the Bautista’s statement, Poe said UNA should “think before they speak.”

“I don’t want the situation to get worse, but I hope they think before they speak, because they themselves have allies who are involved in cheating and corruption,” Poe said in Filipino in a press briefing.

The senator acknowleedged the friendship of her father with Binay and former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada but said that the limits of friendship must be considered when it comes to duty. AC

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