NPC won’t support Team PNoy in CamSur

NAGA CITY , Philippines   â€“ Members of the Nationalist People’s Coalition here will not vote for the administration coalition Team PNoy, Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Villafuerte of NPC said yesterday.

In a press conference before a United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) motorcade, Villafuerte said the NPC has no official alliance with the administration’s Liberal Party (LP) and with the Nacionalista Party (NP) where re-electionist Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes and former Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar of Team PNoy belong.

“NPC will support UNA. That’s clear to us. We are committed to UNA,” Villafuerte said.

“They (Cayetano, Trillanes and Villar) are not in the list of candidates that we will vote (for),” he added.

Villafuerte admitted that although there were initial negotiations for NPC and LP’s possible coalition, this fell through after certain events highlighted by Team PNoy’s fielding of candidates against NPC at the local level.

“To my mind, all the local candidates of the NPC were disgruntled over the LP. How will you join a group who are fighting NPC? That’s not good politics,” Villafuerte added.

For his part, UNA senatorial candidate and NPC chairman Ernesto Maceda said the alliance of LP and NPC was “never really completed.”

“There are NPC candidates whose opponents are Liberal. One thing for sure is the NPC is supporting most of the UNA candidates,” Maceda added.

Abono party-list endorses 10 senatorial bets

But Abono party-list, which has two million members nationwide, has endorsed six Team PNoy candidates and only four UNA bets.

Abono has endorsed former Movie and Television Review and Classification Board chair Grace Poe, re-electionist Senators Francis Escudero, Loren Legarda, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel, Cayetano and Villar of Team PNoy and former senator Richard Gordon, Nancy Binay, JV Ejercito and Jack Enrile of UNA.

“Our main consideration was that these are candidates who are pro-farmer – those who support the advocacies of our party-list as well as industries allied with Abono,” Abono party-list chairman Rosendo So said.

“They are the ones who supported our fight against rice smuggling as well as against the technical smuggling of other agricultural products such as pork, poultry and onions,” he added.

“Our allied industries have also committed to support these senators... We will decide on Monday on the last two senators whom we will support,” he said.

Escudero batted for the inclusion of farmers in the government’s conditional cash transfer program and for the Department of Agriculture to help farmers avail of insurance coverage for their land and crops.

For her part, Legarda has established a Pantawid Tuition program that sends children of farmers to school, specifically at the Isabela State University.

Enrile filed House Bill 4626 or the “Food for Filipinos First Bill” during his stint in Congress to help the country achieve food security and sovereignty while allowing local farmers and food growers to earn more. 

Cayetano, on the other hand, has called on the government to increase farmers’ access to capital by making loans available to cooperatives and small businesses. Instead of paying 20 percent interest to informal lenders to rent equipment and buy seeds and fertilizer, farmer cooperatives will only have to pay 3 to 5 percent in interest with the help of the state.

Abono party-list has pushed for reforms in the agriculture sector. It aims to help eliminate hunger incidence and make the Philippines self-sufficient in agriculture.  – With Perseus Echeminada