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By Maricel V. Cruz, Reporter
The Supreme Court ruling favoring
the Liberal Party wing of Sen. Franklin Drilon is likely to touch
off a three-cornered fight within the opposition’s senatorial
ticket, the administration’s Team Unity said Wednesday.
Team Unity deputy spokesman
Tonypet Albano said that the LP Drilon wing must now assert its
dominance in the Genuine Opposition following the Supreme Court
decision.
If that happens, the Drilon wing
could clash with the camp of GO campaign manager Sergio Osmeña 3rd
and the faction loyal to former President Estrada and the late movie
star Fernando Poe Jr.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday
rejected a Commission on Elections recommendation to oust Drilon as
LP president for failing to prove that the party’s Constitution
had been ratified.
The decision paves the way for
the naming of the LP under Drilon as one of six major political
parties in the May 14 polls, entitling it to a copy of election
returns and the right to field watchers and inspectors.
In the same resolution, the Court
maintained that the resolution of intra-party disputes is a matter
for the Comelec.
The poll body had ruled that
Drilon’s term as LP president had expired and called for elections
to end the leadership vacuum in the party.
One of the candidates of the
Atienza wing is World Boxing Council International Featherweight
Champion Manny Pacquiao, who is running for congressman in South
Cotabato.
“The Drilon-led LP group is
likely to flex its muscles in GO, thereby exacerbating the campaign
woes plaguing GO arising from the fierce leadership squabbles,
anemic public support for its senatorial bets especially in the
provinces, and the absence of local candidates in most parts of the
country,” Albano said.
Drilon’s LP has several bets
running for seats in the House of Representatives and two candidates
for the Senate. One, Benigno Aquino 3rd is with the GO while the
other, Francis Pangilinan, has chosen to run as an independent.
GO blocs allied with either of
the feuding half-brothers Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and San Juan Mayor JV
Ejercito have been at odds with Osmeña over campaign strategy,
leading to last month’s silent purge of Estrada-FPJ loyalists like
Linggoy Alcuaz and the abrupt transfer of GO’s campaign
headquarters from Estrada’s Puwersa ng Masa office in Mandaluyong
to the ManilaBank building in Makati City.
Earlier, Team Unity spokesman
Joseph Ace Durano said two major political developments provide
clues to the raging war within the GO.
One is the petition filed by the
United Opposition asking the Comelec to declare UNO as the dominant
minority coalition, leaving Drilon’s LP out in the cold.
The second is the insistence of
Estrada for the GO to hold a big rally in Cagayan de Oro City, which
some GO campaign strategists have privately dismissed as
“personally motivated.”
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