Sources said the reported rift in the administration party started when Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr., a top political adviser of President Duterte, launched the Kilusang Pagbabago grassroots movement that could be turned into another political party and vanguard of the Duterte administration to ensure delivery of government programs to the masses. Sources said the reported rift in the administration party started when Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr., a top political adviser of President Duterte, launched the Kilusang Pagbabago grassroots movement that could be turned into another political party and vanguard of the Duterte administration to ensure delivery of government programs to the masses. Jun Evasco/Facebook

Duterte’s main political party breaking apart?

 

MANILA, Philippines – Clashes in ideology threaten to split the ruling administration Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) that supported then Davao City mayor and now President Duterte in the last elections, sources disclosed yesterday.


The sources said the reported rift in the administration party started when Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr., a top political adviser of Duterte, launched the Kilusang Pagbabago grassroots movement that could be turned into another political party and vanguard of the Duterte administration to ensure delivery of government programs to the masses.

According to sources, the new movement would soon register as a political party that could undermine the current ruling PDP-Laban and put the party on the sidelines of the political landscape.

The President in several speeches has described PDP-Laban as a “moribund party,” which was inactive until he accepted the party’s offer to be its presidential standard bearer.

Evasco, a former priest turned New People’s Army (NPA) rebel leader, was the campaign manager and later chief of staff of then mayor Duterte. Evasco was also a former mayor of Maribojoc, Bohol.

In the first executive order Duterte issued as president, he placed 12 agencies under Evasco.

The Kilusang Pagbabago, which was launched last Aug. 13, has started recruiting members including incumbent Cabinet secretaries and former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel Jr., the father of incumbent Senate President Koko Pimentel and chairman emeritus of PDP-Laban.

The elder Pimentel welcomed Evasco’s efforts to create a “new party” that will support the Duterte administration.

“My best hopes go to Mr. Evasco’s move to create a new party, perhaps he is not comfortable with PDP-Laban’s ideological direction,” Pimentel said without elaborating.

Pimentel was among the anti-Marcos political leaders that founded PDP-Laban in 1982. The party also supported the candidacy of opposition leader Corazon Aquino in the snap presidential elections called by Marcos in February 1986.

Irregularities in the snap polls led to the EDSA People Power revolt that toppled Marcos and catapulted Aquino to the presidency.

PDP-Laban is currently headed by Duterte as chairman and Senator Pimentel as party president.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is the incumbent PDP-Laban secretary-general.

The party espoused a peaceful and democratic way of life characterized by freedom, solidarity, justice, equality, social responsibility, enlightened nationalism and a federal system or parliamentary form of government.

PDP-Laban’s basic principles include authentic humanism, democratic central socialism, consultative and participatory democracy.

The Kilusang Pagbabago of Evasco, meanwhile, seeks to be the partner of the Duterte administration in pursuing its developmental focus that includes the war against drugs and criminality, anti-corruption, pursuit of the peace process and shift to a federal form of government.

PDP-Laban laid the foundation for the candidacy of Duterte when it initially fielded Martin Diño, the PDP-Laban deputy secretary-general for Luzon, as its presidential candidate in the May polls, while Duterte was still undecided about running.

Diño later withdrew his candidacy to enable Duterte to be the party’s substitute candidate. He went on to win by a landslide.

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source: http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/11/02/1639679/dutertes-main-political-party-breaking-apart

Read 2375 times Last modified on Wednesday, 02 November 2016 16:28
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