De Lima, Risa reject unity ticket with Marcos camp

MANILA, Philippines — Former senator Leila de Lima and minority Sen. Risa Hontiveros thumbed down yesterday a possible team-up with the Marcos bloc for the creation of an anti-Duterte unity slate as proposed by former senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

De Lima, spokesperson for the Liberal Party, told “Storycon” on One News  that the LP would stay as the opposition and field its own senatorial slate in the 2025 midterm elections.

“On the part of the LP, there is no such alliance,” De Lima said.

She said the LP could not enter into any coalition with the Marcos bloc because it would run counter to the party’s principles as a political opposition.

“We are the opposition. Sen. Risa Hontiveros is now considered as the head or the leader of the opposition. No, we are not going to do that because we are forming our own slate. We are the opposition,” De Lima said.

“We are offering ourselves as… the alternative to the Marcos bloc and the Duterte bloc. We will lose our identity as the opposition if we will coalesce with the Marcos slate, the administration whatever it is, whatever slate they will establish,” she said.

“So right now there is no such plan on the part of the LP or is it even in the other opposition. As already articulated by Senator Risa, we are the opposition. We must be the third force,” De Lima said.

Risa can’t team up with administration

Meanwhile, Hontiveros remains noncommittal on the proposal of Trillanes for the opposition to join forces with the Marcos administration in the 2025 midterm elections.

The Senate deputy minority yesterday said she also remains hopeful that De Lima – whose drug charges have recently been dismissed – and former vice president Leni Robredo would join the opposition senatorial slate in 2025.

Hontiveros said she has been forging alliances in the past two years to firm up a senatorial slate that would offer a platform of governance different from that of the administration.

“As an opposition leader who’s not running in the midterms, I have been working the past two years talking with other opposition leaders to prepare for the midterm polls in order to add more opposition senators in the Senate minority and to add more opposition voice in the country,” she said in a virtual press briefing.

Hontiveros said while she respected Trillanes’ proposal for the “Pink” and “Yellow” forces to form an anti-Duterte ticket with the administration, it would not make it a genuine opposition the country also needed.

“I understand where my ally, former senator Sonny Trillanes, is coming from. At the same time, I treasure our identity as an opposition,” Hontiveros said.

The senator appears to be aloof to the idea that the opposition she leads would ally itself with the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. when they had opposed the return of the Marcoses in Malacañang.

“While it is important to stop the return of the Dutertes, at the same time, there are still unresolved issues in our history, such as the plunder and human rights violations committed during the martial law dictatorship,” Hontiveros said.

Asked if her statements mean that she disagreed with Trillanes’ proposal, Hontiveros said: “Please take it as a note that the opposition is forming its own unique offer to the public for a vision and platform of governance that is distinct from that of the administration.”

“For now, I cannot join the administration as a minority in the Senate and as a member and leader of the opposition,” she added. — Marc Jayson Cayabyab