Liberal Party accepts new members in Cordillera, Bulacan

From the inside, Benguet State University on Monday looked like the Cordillera mountainsides in November, when the yellow “marapait” (wild sunflower) is abloom, as President Aquino led the swearing in of 350 officials as new Liberal Party (LP) members.

The new members wore yellow shirts, similar to the resplendent marapait that dot the mountains to usher in the cold season.

But given the cold shoulder in the LP affair were the Baguio tandem of Mayor Mauricio Domogan and Representative Bernardo Vergara.

“We were not invited,” Domogan said in a radio interview on Monday morning. Domogan is the regional Lakas-Kampi head and close ally of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Vergara was earlier reported to have been sworn in as an LP member, but some party stalwarts decided not to include him in the event here.

Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II, who led the swearing in as LP president, said the party expected 80 percent of politicians in the Cordillera to eventually join the party.

“We would not only be participating in the political process but will be pushing for the vision of the party,” Roxas said in Filipino.

Ifugao Representative Teodoro Baguilat Jr., LP regional head, said the LP would not only be a party of convenience but would be a major political force in the 2013 midterm elections, 2016 presidential race and beyond.

He said the new LP members would be required to attend an introductory workshop on liberal democracy to acquaint them about the party.

Most of the new members came from Benguet, with at least 100 officials.

Among the politicians present were Representatives Ronald Cosalan (Benguet) and Manuel Agyao (Kalinga), presidential adviser on legislative affairs Manuel Mamba, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, and Governors Eustaquio Bersamin (Abra), Elias Bulut Jr. (Apayao), Nestor Fongwan (Benguet), Jocel Baac (Kalinga) and Eugene Balitang (Ifugao).

In Bulacan on Friday, Roxas welcomed into the LP recruits from the Del Pilar Party of Bulacan, Rep. Joselito Mendoza and Postmaster General Josefina de la Cruz.

Roxas told them that the LP has no plan to form a separate coalition with Lakas-CMD in Bulacan, which is headed by Governor Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado.

About 1,000 Bulacan party leaders were sworn in as LP members during a convention at Feliza Jazz restaurant in the City of Malolos.

Mendoza and his sister, De la Cruz, who founded the Del Pilar Party, are former Lakas party members. They formed an alliance with the LP in November 2009 and supported the candidacy of Mr. Aquino in the 2010 elections.

The rumored LP-Lakas alliance in Bulacan was the subject of posts in social networking sites.

Roxas informed the LP delegates that had the party leadership heeded the request for a formal alliance with the local Lakas party, it would still favor the party’s allies in situations where both the Lakas and the LP end up competing for a single post. Frank Cimatu, Inquirer Northern Luzon, and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon