Echiverri leaving LP to join NPC?

Caloocan City Mayor Enrico EcheverriI PHOTO/N. J. ORBETA

He said he was only invited as a guest but leaders of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) has already counted Caloocan Representative Recom Echiverri, a member of the Liberal Party (LP) as among the almost 200 new party members from different provinces.

However, Echiverri was not among the new party members who took their oath on Friday at the NPC Clubhouse in New Manila. He said he did not even know that there was an oath-taking there.

“Well, I was invited by the NPC chairman to go over here and discuss something,” he told reporters after the oath taking. The NPC chairman he was referring to was Isabela Governor Faustino Dy III.

Asked if he was aware that he was also supposed to take an oath along with other local officials, Echiverri said: “No, I was invited to discuss some things in the office and I know things whether [it’s] politics. I don’t know the agenda yet.”

Asked then what Dy told him when the NPC chairman invited him, Echiverri quoted him saying: “’If you’re free, come over to our office and we’ll discuss about something.’”

Asked again if he was planning to leave LP, the congressman said: “Wala pa, hindi pa. Ito nga everything is on the table yet hindi pa natin alam ang decision dun.”

(No, not yet. Everything is on the table yet we don’t know what the decision is.)

“LP ako ngayon ngayon but masama naman na hindi ko puntahan yung invitation ng kaibigan ko di ba?”

(I’m an LP right now but it’s bad if I won’t attend my friend’s invitation, isn’t it?)

Echiverri could not say, however, if he would support the LP’s standard-bearer, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.

“I’m an LP right now,” he repeatedly said when asked if he would put his support behind Roxas.

On the other hand, NPC president, Isabela Representative Giorgidi Aggabao, insisted that Echiverri would join their party and he just came late for the mass oath taking.

“Yes, he will be joining, Congressman Echiverri will be joining. He signified his intention,” he told reporters when sought for comment on Echiverri’s statements.

“I think he arrived late… but we will schedule a separate oath taking taking for him,” Aggabao said.

Asked why Echiverri seemed clueless about the oath-taking, Aggabao said: “My impression is that he’s joining.” Maila Ager/RAM

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