LP hopes to fare better in post-Duterte Senate race

MANILA, Philippines — After losing heavily in the last three elections, the opposition Liberal Party (LP) will again try to battle it out with pro-administration senatorial candidates, but this time in a post-Duterte political arena under the administration of President Marcos.

Rep. Edcel Lagman, president of the LP, which was the ruling party during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III from 2010 to 2016, revealed that they could not yet fill the 12-member slate for the Senate.

“We’re not going to have a full slate. At the most, we will field about six candidates for the senatorial elections,” the veteran congressman, who represents the first district of Albay province in Bicol, told reporters at the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel forum last Wednesday.

He refused to name the candidates, however, even if among those who lost in Duterte’s midterm polls in 2019 were former senator Bam Aquino, human rights lawyer Chel Diokno and former solicitor general Florin Hilbay.

Lagman, an independent opposition legislator, said LP senatorial candidates will not come from the ranks of the super majority coalition in both houses of Congress, nor will they have ties with the administration of Marcos.

“For electoral purposes, I think LP will remain as the political opposition and will put up its independent slate both in the national and local level. But on issue-to-issue basis, there can be an alliance,” he said, citing as possible basis the West Philippine Sea.

Lagman was nevertheless open to having an alliance with the administration coalition, whose most dominant party is Lakas-CMD of which he had been a member and stalwart during the nine-year reign of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that ended in June 2010.

“Politics is the game of the possible,” he said when asked of a possible sharing scheme with senatorial candidates with the Marcos administration. “We can consider that, but at the moment, we haven’t talked about it yet. So, it can be part of the agenda.”

“We will discuss that in a proper meeting of the LP,” Lagman added. Former senator Leila de Lima, who lost her bid for reelection in 2022, is LP spokesperson.

Lagman clarified though that an alliance can only be undertaken on a per-issue basis, where topics may range from the country’s rift with China over the West Philippine Sea and the International Criminal Court’s war on drugs investigation during the time of Duterte.

“And I am calling for a summit to invite all kindred nations supporting the Philippines, to have a meeting here in the Philippines, to show the extent of the support being given to the Philippines on the West Philippine Sea,” Lagman said.

“On the ICC, we can have an alliance if the government will change its posture that we should cooperate with the ICC with respect to the charges against the former president on alleged crimes against humanity related to the drug war,” the human rights lawyer added.