‘Opposition to expand by 2025 polls’

MANILA, Philippines — Despite heavy losses in the past three elections, the Liberal Party of the late president Benigno Aquino III vowed to slug it out again and emerge victorious in the next elections, the May 2025 senatorial elections.

“We have started our preparation. We have started to organize more from the youth sector, or more independent sectors, or those who have allied advocacy with respect to our philosophy of governance,” LP president Rep. Edcel Lagman vowed.

“We have started and we will pursue it in preparation for the May 2025 midterm elections, and subsequently in the 2028 elections. We are starting early and I hope we’ll be able to get more supporters in order to get a better result for the opposition in 2025,” he added.

It was three consecutive losses for LP that started in May 2016, when former president Rodrigo Duterte overwhelmingly won, followed by the May 2019 senatorial polls, where no LP candidate ever won, except in May 2022 – where only Sen. Risa Hontiveros got lucky.

“We will have to put up candidates without most probably filling up the slate because that will disperse our resources,” Lagman, a congressman from Albay’s first district, told “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News.

“We will have six or seven candidates only. We will support them nationwide. We’re trying on the process of educating our electorate that they should be able to select the credible candidates, which we are going to put up as official candidates of the LP,” he said.

Lagman, an independent opposition lawmaker, was elected LP president in September 2022.

“We are also talking about alliances with other groups to beef up opposition’s reach. We are intensifying our campaign against disinformation because the LP candidates were victims of this disinformation,” he explained.

“It’s really unfortunate that the majority coalition is so overwhelming that what the majority wants, the majority gets. But there has to be an opposition in a democratic setting. Otherwise, there will be no democracy,” Lagman declared.