GMA agrees to chair Lakas

President Arroyo will be the new chairman of Lakas-NUCD-UMDP.

Speaking in her regular program over Radyo Bombo yesterday, Mrs. Arroyo said she has accepted the offer of Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. for her to head the party that catapulted then Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos to the presidency in 1992.

"For your information, the Lakas people were asking me to be the chairman of the party," she said. "No less than Joe de Venecia who is the chairman would like to cede his position to me. And I will be accepting the offer of Jose de Venecia to be the chairman of Lakas."

The President issued the statement amid reports that she was planning to bolt Lakas and set up her own political party.

"Actually, within the administration party, such rumors were coming out in newspapers of the opposition," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo said one of her partymates, Negros Occidental Rep. Apolinario Lozada Jr., had called her up to deny that he was spreading rumors that she would be forming a new political party.

"Although (Lozada) was not named, he however felt being alluded to in the rumors and told me somebody is doing a smear job on him," she said. "(Lozada) was denying to me that he was the one saying those things against me."

During the radio program, Mrs. Arroyo did not say what would happen to the People Power Coalition which fielded a common Senate slate from Lakas, Liberal Party and other political parties in last year’s national and local elections.

Talks about Mrs. Arroyo’s political plans for 2004 were stoked by separate statements of Presidential Adviser for Special Concerns Norberto Gonzales and Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs Joey Rufino about her efforts to consolidate her political stock.

Ramos and De Venecia founded Lakas in 1992 after the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) chose then Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr. as its candidate for president.

Mrs. Arroyo started her political career when she ran and won as senator in 1992 under the LDP banner, and in 1995, she ran for re-election as a candidate of the Lakas-Laban coalition ticket.

When she ran for vice president in 1998, Mrs. Arroyo formed the Kilusang Mamamayang Pilipino (Kampi) which entered into a coalition with Lakas and De Venecia became their standard bearer. — Marichu Villanueva