MANILA – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is to officiate on Thursday the “marriage” of the country’s two biggest pro-administration political groups in preparation for the May 2010 elections, a senior Malacanang official announced.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the marriage of the Lakas Christian Muslim Democrats and the “Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino” (Kampi, or Partners of the Free Filipinos) would take place after leaders of the two parties have ironed out the problems that initially tended to stop the merger.
Ermita, a member of Lakas, said the merged parties would be called Lakas Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats.
The merger, Ermita said, would come on the final day of the 45-day period set by President Arroyo when she appointed Secretary Gabriel Claudio, the presidential adviser on political affairs, to go over the terms of the final agreement.
On the eve of the signing, two ranking officials of Lakas and Kampi announced their resignation in order to give members of the new party a free hand in choosing their news leaders.
Congressman Luis Villafuerte of Camarines Sur province in the Bicol Region, said he already quit as the head of Kampi, the political party founded by President Arroyo and her supporters.
On the other hand, Senate Majority Leader Jose Miguel Zubiri announced his resignation as the secretary general of Lakas, the political party founded by then president Fidel Ramos, former House speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. of Pangasinan province in Northern Luzon and the late senator Raul Manglapus.
Under merger terms, officials said Lakas and Kampi agreed to unite on the basic principle that political parties should have an ideology, offer a programme of government and reject personality-based politics as the basis for seeking public office.
As such, officials said the new party would retain the Christian-Muslim democratic ideology and the principle of people empowerment that has been espoused by Lakas since it was founded in 1992.
The new party would also keep Kampi’s principle for new governance and social justice which was adopted when President Arroyo founded the party in the 2001 elections, officials added.
With the merger, officials said Lakas Kampi would become the most dominant political grouping in the country that would have a big say in the 2010 elections.
According to officials, Lakas has 39 governors while Kampi has 19, giving the new party virtual control in 56 of the country’s provinces.
The new party also dominates the House of Representatives where its members have succeeded in “killing” at least four of the impeachment complaints filed by the opposition and other concerned sectors against the President since she took over Malacanang in 2001 following the ouster of then president Joseph Estrada.
In particular, the merger would disprove the claim that President Arroyo would be a “lame duck” president in her last year in office, said Raymundo Roquero, the executive director of Lakas.
Roquero explained the merged party would consolidate the President’s major supporters and give her a strong political hand one year before voters go to the polls to choose her successor.
At the same time, Roquero pointed out the merger also set the stage for the new party to choose its standard bearer in the 2010 polls, with Vice President Noli Castro, who is an independent, acknowledged as the front-runner among the aspirants.
The other aspirants are Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. of the Department of National Defense and Bayani Fernando, the chairman of the Metro Manila Development Authority.
Loading ...
Reader’s Views