The LP should watch out on choices of local bets
If the Liberal Party does not want to self-destruct, as the eminent columnist, Bobbit Avila, has warned, its leadership should exercise utmost caution in its choices of local bets. If the President, who is titular head of the administration party, as well as their presidential bet Mar Roxas and vice-presidential candidate Leni Robredo really want to set an example of TUWID NA DAAN, they better keep their acts together and reflect very seriously on the implications of their decisions in Cebu, in Negros Occidental and even in Metro Manila.
Of course, the LP wants to win, but it should not to winning at any cost. The party in power should never disregard the party fundamental principles that should characterize them as following the straight and narrow path of rigtheousness and integrity. The way they are doing it is that the original Liberals who have made tremendous sacrifices for the party and its candidates in the past, are now being eased out, or to use a more accurate term, they were elbowed out or pushed to the sidelines, in favor of the more moneyed, and those who are showing more probability of achieving victory.
This kind of maneuvering is not an indicium of a winning party, but one that is desperate to achieve victory. This, in fact, has turned off a lot of thinking Filipinos. It is a manifestation that the LP is not really a party of principles but one which is driven by opportunism and prone to indecent and unjust schemes and machinations. The young voters are looking for icons of integrity, they are searching for a candidates who are worthy of emulation and respect. But this kind horse-trading is the complete anathema to what the LP is trying to project as a brand.
There must be adherence to the priciple of equity of the incumbent. There must be a basic respect for the original Liberal Party loyalists who remained loyal with the party at its most difficult times. But the current LP leadership led by Congressman Joseph Abaya, who, by the way, has proven beyond the pale of doubt to be a mediocre Transportation and Communications Secretary, has not been living up to the LP mantra of Daang Matuwid. It is now acting as a party of the opportunists, the group that has no concern for loyalty and fidelity to party principles.
If Secretary Mar Roxas and his boss, P Noy can not address these intramurals with a sense of urgency and decisiveness, then I would say that there will a little difference between LP and UNA. It will be better if we, the men and women of conscience, would go for Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, considering that Rody Duterte does not appear to be inclined to join the fray. What is happening to the LP today is like an intra-union dispute, just like the leadership struggle in TUCP between the old man Democrito Mendoza and his hitherto favorite disciple Ernesto " Boy" Herrera.
In Negros Occidental, Mar Roxas may lose a big block of the Negrense vote because they have eased out the incumbent LP provincial Chair, in favor of a former political opponent. He is very influential among the municipal mayors is now sidelined and his mayors are declaring a ''revolution'' against the LP's imperialistic Manila. What is happening in Negros and in Cebu, including that of Lapulapu City is a mirror of the kind of LP leadership. What they have done is like sidelining Lapulapu in favor of Humabon. Thus, indeed, the LP is governed by ilustrados, hacienderos and encomenderos. We need a Crisostomo Ibarra to tell them to their faces that this is not MATUWID.
- Latest
