Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III (Photo by JOSEPH VIDAL / Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III on Wednesday said the number of politicians jumping ship to Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) has reached 300,000.
Pimentel, who is the party president, said there was a continuous vetting of party members to filter out narcopoliticians.
“The increase in number was swift,” he said. “We are doing double screenings because we don’t want anyone involved in illegal drugs to join our party.”
“We’re anticipating the possibility of narcopoliticians joining PDP-Laban just so they could say that they belong to the President’s party,” he added.
Pimentel hoped that the party could keep its numbers even after the President had stepped down.
Failure to do so, he said, would mean the party’s failure to educate its members about personality politics.
“We will have to accept our responsibility that we failed to educate them,” he said. /atm