LP picks Roxas as president

The Liberal Party unanimously elected Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II as its new president yesterday, replacing Sen. Franklin Drilon.

Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, son of the late LP stalwart Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., nominated Roxas during the party’s national executive council meeting at Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan.

Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca seconded Aquino’s nomination of Roxas, to which no objection was raised.

“My fellow Liberals, in a few minutes, we shall witness the torch of party leadership passed to a man who will make the LP a sturdy and modern bridge to the next generation through lessons learned from the past,” Roxas said. He said he has what it takes “not only to lead the party, but our country.”

“Every member shall be given every opportunity to shine through his advocacy of ideas and integrity of character. We shall build a strong, united and modern LP rooted in its founding principles, sharpening its purpose and lead it to victory in 2010,” Roxas said.

Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, head of a rival faction in LP, said the election only deepened the disunity in the party.

“Congratulations, Sen. Roxas, on your installation as president of the Liberal Party faction led by Frank Drilon and his merry cabal of destabilizers,” Atienza, former chairman of the LP, said.

“We were hoping we would be congratulating Mar as our president, the head of a newly united Liberal Party, but it seems the worst fears of our group became reality after all,” he added. “He violated the decision of the Supreme Court for a status quo, declaring the incumbency of Drilon as president and the other officers, yet they excluded many of us.”

“We are the party that believes in strengthening our institution and making the system work, specially for the poorest of the poor. Sen. Mar Roxas embodies the liberal spirit,” Padaca said.

Drilon said the party “bravely sailed through the nation’s roughest political waters” throughout his term, referring to his locking of horns with President Arroyo, particularly over issues of corruption, human rights, and elections fraud.

Roxas said LP is open to the administration’s call for unity, but never at the expense of the party’s independence.

“We will reach out to all individuals and groups who will fight with us – for freedom, for fairness, for tolerance and for redeeming our faith in our future. These are the battles that I will fully engage in as your party president,” Roxas said.

Roxas said many of the country’s freedom fighters in recent history were from the LP, like Evelio Javier, former Senate president Jovito Salonga, Wigberto Tañada, Raul Daza, and Butch Abad.

“At certain periods of our history, these great men held back the night and opened the doors to freedom and light. In the longest hours of the night, they are the ones who gave us light,” he said of the prominent LP personalities.

Roxas said LP is open to a coalition with other political parties but ruled out any merger.

“We are always open to a coalition or to an alliance with other political parties but never a merger,” Roxas told The STAR after his election.

Roxas said LP would help initiate needed social and economic reforms in the country.

“You and I must work even harder and with greater urgency to change our country. We have to do it together as a political party and as an organized movement, based on values, on ideas, on competence and on vision,” Roxas said.

Former President Joseph Estrada earlier said the opposition is open to a possible merger with LP.

Disunity to continue

“The division that exists in the party continues. This (election) even deepened the faction because they insisted on pushing through with the election without us,” Atienza declared.

“We can’t unify the group if you put one over the other… sincerity is what counts,” he added.

The LP break-up started when Drilon, then the party president, and several LP members allegedly “misrepresented” the political party last July 8, 2005 when they called for the resignation or impeachment of President Arroyo, claiming that such a decision was a result of a unanimous vote among the Liberals.

But Atienza, a staunch ally of Mrs. Arroyo, said the call for Mrs. Arroyo to resign was merely the decision of “a cabal of about a dozen members” of the LP.

“We have to do what we have to do to clarify this… to rectify the negative effects of what has been done,” Atienza said. “But first we may have to reach out; we have to be democratic about this. However, we may also have to go to the Commission on Elections or the Supreme Court.”

He said he has nothing against Roxas being groomed as presidential contender.

“I have nothing against Mar or his competency to lead as president of LP.  What we are questioning here is the manner or the process by which this election was conducted,” Atienza stressed.

“If we are to aspire for 2010, we must first show the people leadership so that in 2010 the people may choose the LP,” he said.  “But the party continues to be divided, which should not be.”

2010 shaping up

As presidential hopefuls emerge or make their presence felt, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago claimed there are not enough good ones in the lineup and that two of the prominent wannabes are small fries.

“They are ants,” Santiago said, referring to Sen. Loren Legarda and Vice President Noli de Castro.

“When the elephants sneeze, the ants will catch pneumonia. Because it is now a given that you cannot run for president unless you have at least P1 billion, and your chances increase in multiples of tens of billions,” she said.  “The surveys will not count for very much apart from the usual cynicism among the public about the accuracy of those surveys,” she added.

Santiago was reacting to a statement by Legarda’s camp that she is among five senators most trusted by the people based on a Pulse Asia awareness and trust ratings survey.

Included in the list are Sen. Francis Pangilinan, Sen. Manuel Roxas, Senate President Manuel Villar Jr., and Sen. Panfilo Lacson..

“I see it as an affirmation from the people of our work as legislators and fiscalizers. Such survey can serve as a compass on legislative direction the people want us to take,” Legarda said in a statement.

Also on the list are Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos, De Castro, Sen. Joker Arroyo, and former President Joseph Estrada.

Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, for his part, said surveys might just determine his move come 2010.

 “I don’t have any specific plan but I do have a dream,” he said at the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Hotel forum.

“Even a barangay captain wants to be mayor, congressman, senator or president,” Escudero added.

“If by year 2010 the surveys would indicate that I will not win, I will not push through. Even if I don’t have any specific plan but the surveys would be favorable to me, I will run,” Escudero said. “I will not run if I’m not ready.” - With Christina Mendez, Katherine Adraneda