PDP-Laban Cusi wing evaluating presidential options for 2022

MANILA, Philippines — Officials of the PDP-Laban’s Cusi faction will be meeting on Monday to evaluate the wing’s presidential options for the 2022 elections.

This, after Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, the faction’s initial presidential candidate, filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) for vice president in next year’s elections.

“I’m calling a party meeting and we are evaluating what our options will be,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, president of the faction, said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.

“There are options because the party believes in continuity that’s why we also believe that Sen. Bong Go should run for vice president to make sure that the program that we have started, the programs that the President has started will be continued,” he added.

Over the weekend, Go formalized his vice presidential bid after President Rodrigo Duterte decided to withdraw his acceptance of his nomination to run for the second highest post in the country under the Cusi-led wing.

Cusi also mentioned a resolution adopted by his group in September that gave Duterte, as the chairman of the faction, the authority to fill up any vacant positions for the 2022 polls.

“We may not be able to fill up all the national positions, we gave our chairman president Duterte the authority to fill up the positions that are vacant,” Cusi said.

The PDP-Laban has been split into two factions—the Cusi wing and the group led by Senators Manny Pacquiao and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III—as they aim to support different candidates in the 2022 elections.

The Cusi-led faction earlier petitioned the Commission on Elections to declare their group the legitimate party members “the soonest because it carries the consequence that those belonging to the losing camp will be treated as independent candidates.”

The poll body has yet to decide on the matter even as the filing of COCs for the 2022 elections have already commenced.

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