Sotto to NPC members: Abide by decision or leave party

Senator Vicente Sotto lll. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

ANGELES CITY, Pampanga—Members of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) who were against its decision to support the presidential and vice presidential bids of Senators Grace Poe and Francis “Chiz” Escudero are free to leave the party, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Reelectionist Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III said the NPC has already made the decision and its members should toe the line.

READ: Poe, Escudero finally get NPC’s endorsement

Sotto pointed that close to 90 percent of the estimated 4,000 members of the party expressed their preference to support the Poe-Escudero tandem in the upcoming elections in May.

“As I said earlier, kahit 51 percent lang yung nag agree (even if only 51 percent agreed), that’s majority. So we follow the rule of the majority. The executive committee has already ruled, and according to the president, close to 90 percent agree ang partido (close to 90 percent of the party members agreed),” he said, referring to the NPC President and Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao.

“Itong umaangal, itong less than 10 percent (The other 10 percent did not agree with the decision.) So what they can do is they can take a leave or they can inform the party that they don’t want to support the (party) decision and if you do that, you can’t expect the party to support you, we can’t give you our support dahil hindi ka sumusunod sa party decision (because you do not follow the party decision.)”

READ: NPC divided over Poe-Escudero endorsement

“Pero wala namang kaming sanction na iniisip sa ngayon. Wala pa namang pinag uusapan na sanction,” Sotto added.

(However, we are not yet thinking of the sanction right now. We haven’t talked about the sanction.)

The senator strongly denied some detractors’ claim that the NPC was not solid on its decision.

“Ang tanong ko nga, ang LP ba solid lahat? Ang Lakas ba solid lahat? Ang UNA ba solid lahat?” the senator asked.

(These are my questions: Are all LP (members) solid? Are all Lakas (members) solid? Are all UNA (members) solid?)

LP is Liberal Party which is rooting for former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas for president while UNA is United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) of Vice President Jejomar Binay. RAM