NPC still undecided on presidential bet

MANILA, Philippines - The Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), second largest political party in the country, has yet to choose which of the three presidentiables it will support in the May 2016 general elections.

But NPC chairman and House Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao is personally supporting the tandem of Sens. Grace Poe and Francis Escudero, who respectively announced their intentions to run for president and vice president on Wednesday and yesterday.

Aggabao attended Poe’s declaration in the Bahay ng Alumni at the University of the Philippines and was at Escudero’s pronouncement of bid at the Club Filipino in Greenhills in his “personal capacity.”

“I said before that there’s no party decision as yet. We have (yet) to meet as a party but what we (NPC members) are saying is that we’re here on our personal capacity…,” Aggabao said when pressed by reporters on whether the NPC would support the Poe-Escudero tandem under the Partido Pilipinas party at the historic Club Filipino. 

The NPC has met with Poe, Liberal Party bet Mar Roxas and the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) candidate Jejomar Binay.

Aggabao is confident the NPC would arrive at a united stand and announce the candidates it will support in the coming elections.

“I don’t want to second guess the direction of the party… until then, we will be present in all meetings of Senator Grace and Senator Chiz in our individual capacity. In the event the party decides to help them, we will offer the apparatus of the party (but) they can remain as independent (candidates). More important is we consult our members and listen to their sentiments,” he said.

In a chance interview, Escudero’s mother, Sorsogon Rep. Evelina Escudero, said the Partido Pilipinas of Poe and Escudero has eight bets so far in its senatorial slate.

Aggabao claimed that as far as the NPC is concerned, Sen. Tito Sotto, Valenzuela Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian and Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares would run for senator under the Partido Pilipinas coalition. 

Rep. Escudero said the coalition would likely complete its senatorial lineup by the end of the month, just several days before the deadline for filing of certificates of candidacy in October. 

Meanwhile, Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga, one of the NPC spokesmen, said the citizenship issue hounding Poe is no big deal for the NPC.

“We have discussed it in the party and we felt it’s not much of an issue,” he said over the ABS-CBN News Channel.

Enverga said Poe is qualified to run for president even if she once renounced her being a Filipino as he believes that “it’s not a legal issue. It’s more an issue of loyalty.”

On Monday, Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo said Poe does not deserve the presidency because “she once turned her back on the country and its people.”

Enverga, along with Aggabao and three other NPC members, attended Wednesday’s formal declaration by Poe of her presidential candidacy.

Businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. founded NPC in 1992. It supported then Sen. Benigno Aquino lll, Cojuangco’s nephew, in the 2010 presidential election. – With Jess Diaz