No presidential, vice presidential bet for LDP

BALER, Aurora, Philippines  – The Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) is not fielding its candidates for president and vice president in next year’s elections.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, son of former Senate president Edgardo Angara who founded LDP in 1988, said that the party is presently not supporting any candidate nor is it planning to field or adopt one.

Angara said LDP leaders would meet next month after the filing of certificates of candidacy to discuss their next move. He is also unsure if the party would remain a coalition partner in the 2016 elections.

“That is something I cannot decide on. But we will meet to thresh it out,” he said in a press briefing.

“You are free to support who you want. Like for example in 2010, in Aurora they supported P-Noy (President Aquino) while then governor Bellaflor Angara-Castillo supported (Gilbert) Teodoro,” he added.

Asked if it’s automatic for LDP to support the administration as a coalition partner, Angara said he thinks not. 

“I don’t think it’s automatic, especially if you talk to the other parties like NPC (Nationalist People’s Coalition) and NUP (National Unity Party). Maybe it would be nice to have some kind of continuity because there is cooperation at the outset, but it depends on what programs they have laid out. If we see that this will help our nation, then why not?” he explained.

But the senator admitted that winnability is one of the factors that will be considered by the LDP, aside from experience and platform of government.              

In the 2004 presidential elections, the LDP was critically divided into two factions. The LDP president, the older Angara, supported the candidacy of party outsider the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., while the late Agapito “Butz” Aquino, President Aquino’s uncle, supported the candidacy of former senator Panfilo Lacson.