Funding woes hounding UNA?

The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) admits its fundraising campaign is off to a rocky start as most businessmen it has approached are wary of being openly identified with Vice President Jejomar Binay.

But UNA president and Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco remains confident the alliance will be able to field a full slate from national to local positions in next year’s elections despite funding woes.

“We are having problems [getting campaign donors] because of one reason—businessmen see the government harassing supporters of VP Binay. They think that by openly supporting VP Binay, they should prepare for the government using its powers to pressure them,” Tiangco said in a radio interview.

“They don’t want any trouble so they are careful in engaging with us in public functions. It’s just hi and hello,” Tiangco said.

He noted the chilling effect of the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s move to freeze the bank accounts of Binay, his family and his associates.

“We still have financial supporters and nobody has abandoned us so far. They just don’t want to be identified, they are being careful,” he added.

Despite this, Tiangco said UNA was confident it would name a candidate for vice president, a full 12-member senatorial ticket and local government candidates for most of the provinces, cities and towns in the country.

He doused rumors that Binay would run without a vice presidential for lack of viable candidates. “We will find a candidate,” he said.

5 bets under scrutiny

Tiangco said there were five vice presidential candidates being vetted by the UNA search committee. He said the list was a mix of politicians and businessmen, and the committee was in different stages of discussions, from initial feelers to actual negotiations.

“The chosen candidate should agree to be a working vice president and believe in the Vice President’s goal to ensure that economic growth is felt by the people,” Tiangco said.

He said the prospective running mates were told not to worry too much about the allegations being thrown at Binay because the Vice President himself would take care of these attacks.

“We’re telling the interested bets to just worry about his or her own campaign because VP Binay can easily answer all these allegations,” Tiangco said.

UNA will announce who Binay’s running mate will be in September, a month before the deadline for the filing of candidacy.

As the youngest political party, UNA’s priority is to recruit political coordinators in each of the country’s 1,540 municipalities and 120 cities to ensure an efficient network for the party, Tiangco said.