Roxas urged to unite LP for presidential bid

MANILA, Philippines – Environment Secretary Lito Atienza appealed yesterday to Sen. Mar Roxas to reunite the Liberal Party (LP) if he wants to win in the 2010 presidential elections.

“I challenge him to reunite the party if he wants to be the leader of this country,” Atienza told reporters.

Roxas, who was elected party president by the LP executive council in November last year, is being groomed as its standard-bearer in the 2010 presidential elections.

The LP is the second oldest political party in the Philippines, formed after World War II by former President Manuel Roxas.

Atienza said based on LP history, no presidential candidates of the party have won the elections when the party is divided.

He cited the time of former President Elpidio Quirino and former Senate president Jose Avelino, who both led the LP.

The party also failed to win the elections during the time of former Senate president Jovito Salonga and assembly member Eva Estrada Kalaw, he said.

“When the Liberal Party is united we will win… only if we learn from that experience,” Atienza said.

The former Manila mayor also called on the Commission on Elections to rule on the complaint they filed against the election of Roxas as party president.

He said if the party wants to have good chances in 2010, “we must sacrifice our differences for the good of our party.”

In 2005, Franklin Drilon, then a senator and LP head, called on President Arroyo to resign after purported wiretapped conversations in which she and former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano allegedly discussed how to rig the 2004 presidential elections became public.

Atienza, on the other hand, led a faction of the party that chose to continue supporting Mrs. Arroyo, creating a rift in the party.

It was the seventh split within the LP.