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By Sam Mediavilla, Reporter
Tourism Secretary Ace Durano, the
spokesman for Team Unity, on Sunday dismissed the campaign against
political dynasties waged by former senator Francisco Tatad, saying
he was leaving it up to the individual candidates to make their
stand on the issue.
Tatad has challenged candidates
of Team Unity and Genuine Opposition to declare their stand on
political dynasty.
But Durano said the candidates of
Team Unity are concentrating on the issue of sustaining economic
growth as ordered by President Arroyo.
Tatad, who was with the United
Opposition coalition when Fernando Poe Jr. ran against Mrs. Arroyo
in 2004, had broken ties with the opposition.
He railed at UNO for patronizing
political dynasties after he failed to get the endorsement of Makati
Mayor Jejomar Binay, who is UNO president, to join the Genuine
Opposition’s Senate ticket.
Binay instead backed the
candidacies of Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel 3rd, the son of Sen.
Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., and Taguig-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter
Cayetano, the brother of another incumbent senator, Pia Cayetano.
Durano said Team Unity welcomes
the individual opinions of its candidates on the political dynasty
issue, and maintains the administration will not dictate on its
candidates.
He added that Team Unity, as a
whole, respects the “diversity of ideas and adheres to the
democratic practices of the group.”
“We leave that up to the
individual members and to the legislative dynamics of congress,”
he said.
Tatad branded the candidacies of
Cayetano and Pimentel as “immoral, unconstitutional and in
extremely bad taste,” urging it could not be made the starting
point of a respectable senatorial career.
He likewise called it
“retrograde and perverse for anyone who wants to sit in the Senate
to argue that since there is no enabling law the Constitution could
be disregarded.” 
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