LP denies asking Gordon to file disqualification case vs Grace

MANILA, Philippines - The ruling Liberal Party (LP) yesterday denied asking former senator Richard Gordon to file a disqualification case against presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe.

Administration coalition spokesman and Marikina Rep. Romero Quimbo said the party would not resort to a smear campaign to win the elections.

Poe will be up against LP standard bearer Manuel Roxas II in the 2016 presidential race. Roxas had wooed Poe to be his running mate but she declined and decided to run for president.

“The LP has not and will not authorize any person to engage in a smear campaign,” Quimbo said.

“We have always campaigned on daang matuwid (straight path) and we are focused on issues and platform, not on personalities,” he added.

Quimbo said the party has learned from President Aquino’s experience that a chief executive can make difficult and unpopular decisions as long as he has a “clear and unquestionable mandate.”

“Winning through a smear campaign will make governance difficult. We don’t want that,” Quimbo said.

For his part, Gordon said he was asked in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel yesterday to comment on the disqualification cases filed against Poe.

He said some LP and United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) members and his schoolmates in University of the Philippines approached him to file a case disqualifying Poe in the presidential race.

Gordon, however, clarified that he did not mention that the cases seeking Poe’s disqualification emanated from the camps of other presidential aspirants.  

“I would like to think that those who called me about a disqualification case against Senator Poe did so in the context that her disqualification would mean my elevation to the Senate,” he said.

Gordon said he rejected the offer.

“I dismissed such talk out of hand on the grounds of delicadeza. I believe that the matter of Senator Poe’s qualifications for public office have been referred to the proper forum,” he said.

Gordon will run for senator under UNA. He is also a guest candidate in Poe’s slate.

Meanwhile, Sen. Francis Escudero called for a clean campaign in the run-up to the 2016 elections amid reports that Gordon had been asked by the allies of LP and UNA to file a disqualification case against Poe. Escudero is Poe’s running mate.

He accused the administration and opposition officials of deceiving the Filipino people in their desperate attempt to derail the presidential bid of Poe.

“When your leaders say one thing and do another, it does not speak well of their character nor of their capacity to lead the nation. Our people expect honesty, not doublespeak; integrity, not deceit,” Escudero said.

“If Mar believes that Senator Poe is a Filipino, he should tell LP members and his supporters to stop making an issue out of it. The same holds true for Vice President Binay, who had also invited her to be his running mate,” he added. – With Christina Mendez