Angara stays with Senate minority

Sen. Edgardo Angara will remain with the Senate minority even if his former boss, ousted President Joseph Estrada, expels him from the political opposition.

"He will stay with us as long as he wants to and as long as he is opposition-minded. Wala kaming pakialam sa oposisyon sa labas (We have nothing to do with the opposition outside). What we are concerned with is our (minority) group here," Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said yesterday.

He said he wants both Angara and his bitter enemy, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, to remain with his nine-member bloc even if the two fail to bury the hatchet.

Any member leaving the minority would be a big loss for the Senate opposition, whose function is to check those in power, he said.

Similarly, any senator joining the minority is a substantial addition to his bloc, Pimentel stressed.

Asked what his group would do if Angara decided to express support for the Arroyo administration, the opposition leader said, "That is a difficult matter. In that event, his continued stay with the minority may not be tenable."

In October last year, President Arroyo met with Angara at her mother’s Forbes Park, Makati City residence to discuss critical collaboration. That meeting fueled speculation that the opposition senator was being offered a Cabinet post.

Angara has denied any offer, though he admitted meeting with Mrs. Arroyo.

On Monday, reacting to reports that Estrada was considering "purging" him from the opposition ranks, Angara said his former Palace boss cannot expel him since he does not belong to the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP).

The former Estrada agriculture secretary and later executive secretary heads the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP).

Yesterday, Angara said if the ousted president decides to include Lacson in the broad opposition alliance that he is organizing, he would exclude himself from that group.

"I will not be in the same group with Lacson," he said, though both senators are part of the Pimentel-led minority in the Senate.

He said he and his remaining LDP followers would act as a "moderate opposition that will not destabilize the government."

Asked about the statement by Estrada’s senator-son Jinggoy that the former president was trying to patch up differences between Angara and Lacson, Angara said he was not aware of any such initiative.