BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR and RAYMOND AFRICA
THE presidential bid of Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao under the administration party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) is illegal as an assembly last Sunday where his announcement was made is also illegal, an official of the opposing camp of the ruling party said yesterday.
Melvin Matibag, secretary general of the PDP-Laban faction headed by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, said the assembly they held in Pampanga on September 8, during which they declared Sen. Christopher Go and President Duterte as the party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates, is the legitimate assembly.
The other faction, led by Pacquiao and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, said the Cusi faction is a joke because its supposed standard bearer officially declined the nomination during the September 8 assembly itself.
“The Cusi-Matibag group in a public ceremony nominated someone for president of the Republic of the Philippines and that person formally declined their nomination. Who is ending up to be a comedy?” Pimentel said.
Pimentel also called Matibag a “good bluffer.”
The Pimentel-Pacquiao faction on Sunday held what it said was the PDP-Laban’s 11th national assembly, where Pacquiao was unanimously nominated by faction members to be the party’s standard bearer for the next year’s elections.
Pacquiao accepted the nomination as he vowed to give the people a corruption-free government.
Meanwhile, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno confirmed he has met with Pacquiao and opposition leader Vice President Leni Robredo but declined to give details.
But Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, who abandoned the opposition Liberal Party after 18 years and joined Moreno’s party Aksyon Demokratiko, confirmed that there have been talks between Moreno and Robredo.
“To me, I feel they’ll be helping each other,” he said.
Moreno, who was recently elected president of Aksyon Demokratiko, and Robredo, LP chairman, have yet to declare their political plans, Moreno yesterday administered the oath to Erice and six city councilors.
Erice was LP secretary general and campaign spokesman of former interior secretary Mar Roxas when the latter ran of president in 2016. He said he left the party of the late former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III with a “heavy heart.”
Erice is planning to run for mayor of Caloocan City next year.
Matibag, in an interview with ABS CBN’s Teleradyo program, said any other party assembly that is not called by the current leadership under party chairman President Duterte “is not sanctioned.”
He said Pacquiao can still run for president in 2022 but under political parties with which he is affiliated, like the People’s Champ Movement.
Cusi wished Pacquiao “good luck” in his presidential bid.
The Cusi faction earlier asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to declare the Pacquiao-Pimentel faction illegitimate.
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said PDP-Laban candidates may be file their certificates of candidacy (COCs) during the October 1 to 8 filing period, regardless of the faction they belong to.
“The Comelec will accept their COCs because that mandate is ministerial on the part of the Comelec,” Jimenez in a TV interview.
“It is a different matter when it comes to giving due course among the COCs filed,” he said.
“We will still have to see what happens afterwards once their intra-party dispute is resolved,” he added. — With Wendell Vigilia and Gerard Naval
