Billionaires Manuel “Manny” Villar and Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
Billionaires Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. and Manuel “Manny” Villar are forming a tactical alliance to support the run for President and Vice President of Senators Grace Poe and Francis “Chiz” Escudero in next year’s elections.
Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao disclosed Wednesday that Cojuangco’s Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) and Villar’s Nacionalista Party (NP) were in the middle of discussions to firm up their support for a Poe-Escudero ticket, which they considered the team to beat.
The NPC would announce its support for Poe and Escudero after August, which most businesses consider a bad time for launching any endeavor, as it is a “ghost month” in the Chinese calendar, Aggabao, NPC president, said.
He said he expected the NP to follow suit if the negotiations panned out.
“We hope to fill a common senatorial slate with the NP,” Aggabao said on the sidelines of a press conference at Gateway Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City.
Wide network
The NPC has a wide political network, with 2 senators, 47 representatives, 14 governors and 22 city mayors.
The NP, which was taken over by Villar in 2003, has 5 senators, 20 representatives and 7 governors.
Earlier, Sen. Vicente Sotto III said the NPC, the party founded by Cojuangco as vehicle for his unsuccessful presidential bid in 1992, was open to supporting Poe and Escudero, both independents, in the 2016 elections.
Aggabao said the NPC-NP senatorial slate would include Sotto and Valenzuela Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian of the NPC and Las Piñas Rep. Mark Villar of the NP.
Villar tagged along with Poe and Escudero on a visit to Koronadal City, South Cotabato, last weekend for the T’nalak Festival, in what was seen as preparation for joining the race for Malacañang.
Independent candidate
As early as May, Sen. Cynthia Villar has been hinting that the NP is leaning toward supporting an independent candidate for 2016 amid reports that Poe is running as an independent.
Villar has also been quoted as saying that NP members Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes IV and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will have to raise their own campaign funds if they intend to run for higher offices next year.
Aggabao, however, stressed that discussions for a “third force” were dependent on Poe and Escudero deciding to run.
Escudero was a member of the NPC until he quit in 2009.
Poe’s father, the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., was a personal friend of Cojuangco.
There was no immediate comment from Poe on Wednesday.
Escudero said he appreciated the two parties’ support.
“I am sincerely thankful for political parties and camps who have expressed support should Sen. Grace Poe and I decide to run in 2016,” Escudero said.
He added, however, that he has not yet decided whether to run.
Still fluid
Valenzuela Mayor Rex Gatchalian, a spokesman for the NPC, said talks of an NPC-NP alliance were still fluid, as some NPC members were still lobbying for party support for other candidates, among them former Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco, Danding’s son who has been vocal in campaigning for the presidential bid of Vice President Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).
“But when the party makes a party stand, we expect everybody to toe the party line,” Gatchalian said.
NPC secretary general Leandro Mendoza said that while the party will remain an ally of President Aquino, “[it] will support only the candidates that it will choose and it expects the President to respect [that].”
The President has met with Poe five times since May, but he has failed to convince her to be the running mate of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, the presumptive standard-bearer of the ruling Liberal Party (LP).
The LP wants Poe to run as Vice President even though she is the front-runner in the presidential race in voter preference polls.
Aggabao said he did not expect the Aquino coalition formed in 2013 to remain intact in 2016 because the LP was firm in its choice of Roxas despite his middling performance in the polls.
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice of the LP said that with Poe out of the picture, the LP would name Roxas as its standard-bearer.
Iloilo Rep. Jerry Treñas said he expected President Aquino to announce his chosen candidate between July 29 and 31 or before the “ghost” month of August.
Another member of the Aquino coalition, the National Unity Party (NUP), has remained quiet on whether it would support the President’s candidate or another candidate in the 2016 elections.
The members of the administration coalition are the LP, NPC, NP, NUP and Akbayan.–With a report from Leila B. Salaverria
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