MANILA, Philippines— Sen. Francis Pangilinan on Thursday denied President Rodrigo Duterte’s suspicion that the Liberal Party was plotting to remove him from power, saying dissent is a legitimate part of a democracy.
“The alleged plot is untrue. There is no such plot,” Pangilinan, president of the former administration party, said in a series of text messages on Thursday.
“We are in a democracy, and dissent and rallies should be seen simply as such in a democracy and should not be viewed as part of a so-called larger conspiracy,” said the lawmaker, who was active in recent protests against the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
President Duterte had this week repeated an allegation he made in September that the LP, former President Aquino’s party, was plotting to oust him and install Vice President Leni Robredo in his stead.
READ: Duterte accuses LP of plotting to oust him
The statement followed Robredo’s resignation as Housing Secretary when she was told through text message to “desist” from attending Cabinet meetings. Robredo is the highest elected official from the LP roster.
Pangilinan said the LP’s opposition to administration policies and the President’s actions, among them the violent war on drugs and how the Duterte had allowed Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, did not mean the party was cooking up a plan to dislodge him from power.
“Being critical of the burial of Marcos in the Libingan or being critical of the spate of extrajudicial killings does not mean we want Duterte ousted,” he said.
READ: Speaker: No ‘oust Leni’ plot; 7 LP solons urge party to break free
He also noted how the LP has lost a chunk of its membership to the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) as soon as the President took power in July.
A total of 82 of 115 LP members in the House of Representatives jumped ship and joined the PDP-Laban and other Duterte-allied parties such as the National Unity Party and the Nationalist People’s Coalition. The mass migration left 33 LP members in the House.
The LP meanwhile retains five members in the Senate, and remains allied with the majority bloc.
“…[T]he bulk of the so-called yellows have abandoned the LP ship and are now card-carrying members of other parties such as the PDP-Laban, NUP and even NPC and aligned with Malacañang,” Pangilinan said.
Whether or not this will change may be seen after the Christmas break, when party members will have reached a consensus on the debate about staying in the super majority.
“…[W]e are in the process of consulting our members regarding our next steps as a party given the most recent developments which caught us by surprise,” he said. CDG/rga