President Arroyo, who is the party’s honorary chairperson and whose father – former President Diosdado Macapagal – was also a former LP president, is expected to join other party leaders including former Senate President Jovito Salonga and other LP luminaries invited to join the Plaza Miranda rally.
Atienza earlier ordered early preparations for the big rally as he mobilized barangay patrols to augment city policemen to secure the rally site and facilitate the flow of traffic in the area.
Atienza’s family was among the original founders of the Liberal Party including his uncle, Hermenigildo Atienza, a former councilor, congressman and mayor of the City of Manila, and the mayor’s father Jose Atienza Sr.
The mayor recalled that the LP was founded in Quiapo in 1946 as an opposition to the then administration Nacionalista Party with the LP remaining as a major pillar of the two-party system until the declaration of Martial Law in 1972.