Nacionalista Party wants 4 slots in coalition ticket

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Manuel Villar Jr.’s Nacionalista Party (NP) wants four slots in the common senatorial ticket in next year’s elections of the planned three-party pro-administration coalition.

Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, a member of the NP executive committee, confirmed yesterday that the NP is asking for four slots in the unified ticket.   

“The party has not reached a decision as to who will be entitled to its two other slots,” he said.

Two of the four slots would go to Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and Villar’s wife Cynthia, a former Las Piñas City lawmaker, Gullas said.

Reports said one slot would go to Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who has joined the NP.

Former lawmaker Cynthia Villar is reportedly pushing for the inclusion of Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño, but President Aquino, who is titular head of the Liberal Party, reportedly does not want him in the coalition ticket.

Aquino is said to be harboring a grudge against Bayan Muna.

When his mother, President Corazon Aquino, was sick, militant protesters picketed her house on Times Street in Quezon City in connection with Hacienda Luisita.

Then Sen. Benigno Aquino III called then Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo to complain about the picket, and Ocampo promised to talk to the picketers.

Gullas said he supports the planned LP-NP alliance.

“It makes a lot of sense for the two parties to be aligned ahead of the midterm elections in 2013,” he said. “Looking way back, the LP used to be the ‘liberal wing’ of the NP.”

Gullas said Manuel Roxas, grandfather of Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II, ran for president as the candidate of NP’s “liberal wing” in the 1946 elections, before he eventually bolted the NP to establish the LP.

The combined forces of the two parties, together with the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), would be formidable, he added.

The NPC, founded by Aquino’s uncle billionaire businessman and San Miguel Corp. chairman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., would have at least two slots in the envisioned pro-administration coalition’s senatorial ticket.

These are for Senators Francis Escudero and Loren Legarda.

Escudero is presently without a party, having given up his NPC membership, while Legarda is a member of NPC.

The pro-administration coalition will be up against the United Nationalist Alliance of Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Trillanes joins NP

Senator Trillanes took his oath yesterday as an NP member in Makati.

NP president Villar personally presided over the oath taking at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel yesterday afternoon.

Villar said Trillanes’ entry will bolster further the NP senatorial slate next year, including his wife Cynthia, who was also present during the event.

Also present during the oath taking were NP stalwarts, Senators Pia and Alan Cayetano, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and Representatives Mark Villar, and Crispin Remulla.

Alan Cayetano will join Mrs. Villar and Trillanes in the NP senatorial slate.

Former lawmaker Ace Barbers is also running as senator under the NP, of which he is the spokesman.

Barbers wasn’t at the oath taking of Trillanes yesterday.

Trillanes ran as an independent in 2007 with the support of former senator Jamby Madrigal. 

He remained in detention during the Arroyo administration on coup charges, but he was freed and allowed to work at the Senate shortly after Aquino assumed office some two years ago.

Last Friday, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the Aquino administration has gone beyond the “Villarroyo” tag, which led to Villar’s heartbreaking loss to Aquino during the 2010 presidential elections.

The move was seen as an indication that the LP and NP are working toward an alliance to quash the formidable team being lined up by the United Nationalist Alliance, a coalition of former President Joseph Estrada’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) and Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban (PDP-Laban) of Binay.      

– Jess Diaz, Christina Mendez