NP, LP gearing up for 2010
Two of the country’s oldest political parties are gearing up for the 2010 presidential race.
Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. is getting ready to be the Nacionalista Party’s standard-bearer, while Sen. Manuel Roxas II is being groomed to be the presidential bet of the Liberal Party.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said Villar and Roxas can afford a presidential campaign that can cost up to P2 billion.
On the NP’s part, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, NP secretary general, said they hope to form organizations, mostly involving the youth, to be able to spread the party’s objectives and principles.
“We want the members, especially the young, not to be embarrassed about having an ID of a (political party),” he said. “We do want to avoid traditional politics.”
They would like to make the NP big enough for the 2010 elections without entering into a coalition with bigger parties, Cayetano said.
In a recent interview, Roxas said he believes the electorate in 2010 would be more discerning and careful about who they vote into office.
“The LP will be strong, credible, and big enough that other parties would gravitate towards us,” he said.
“It’s too early to tell how the alliances will shape up, though we will always view these from the prism of principle.”
Cayetano said it would not be the NP’s priority to go into mergers, although it is practical to admit that it was still small at this point.
“We are also not naïve to think that any ruling party will decide this early (as to who it should pick and support in 2010),” he said.
Cayetano said the administration machinery would be key in the next elections, but that the NP would not compromise its principles.
“So these are our challenges now,” he said in a telephone interview.
“Avoid too many compromises but at the same take advantage of all the positive aspects and benefits we can get from other parties.
“You have to win, we know that to be able to achieve your purpose of serving but we won’t compromise just to win.”
Cayetano said the 2010 presidential elections would no longer be confined to the battle between the administration and opposition as new players would be more prominent.
“Unless GMA (President Arroyo) anoints somebody,” he said.
Cayetano said the NP already had a “good start” in building up organizations, with young members in charge.
The NP would hopefully be attractive enough to target members from all sectors of society, he added.
The NP would prefer to run as an opposition rather than be identified with the administration, Villar told The STAR.
Established in 1907, the NP is the country’s oldest political party, which saw the
The LP was set up in 1946 as the breakaway Liberal Wing of the NP by Sen. Manuel Roxas – grandfather of Sen. Manuel Roxas II – as his vehicle in the 1946 presidential elections against President Sergio Osmeña, the NP’s titular head.
Roxas won the elections with 1,333,392 votes or 54.94 percent against Osmeña’s 1,129,996 votes or 45.71 percent.
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