NPC fielding complete slate for 2010 polls - Sotto

The Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) is in the process of forming a complete line-up from president down to the local officials for the upcoming 2010 elections, Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Vicente Sotto III said Friday. In an interview with Senate reporters after the hearing of the DDB’s proposed budget, Sotto said he is included in the list of prospective senatorial candidates of the party founded by business tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco in the early 1990s. "What I can confirm is that the NPC is forming a complete line up from president, to the Senate and local officials in all districts, provinces, municipalities and cities," Sotto said. Aside from him, Sotto said the other senatorial candidates being considered by the party are Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza, former senator Sergio Osmeña III, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, Tourism Secretary Joseph "Ace" Durano and Grace Poe, daughter of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. Sotto said he will most likely try his luck again in the senatorial race should the party finally chooses him to be one of its candidates. "I leave it to the party, ayokong pangunahan ang partido, hindi ko pwedeng pangunahan ang liderato ng NPC. I’m an NPC member, I will have to follow the party line." He added that the party will have an announcement on September 23. "I suppose it would be an announcement of the things agreed [to] by the party, more or less that would be the meat of the announcement. If there are other things to be announced, it is the NPC leadership that should do it," Sotto said without elaborating. Falling out with Erap Sotto served two terms in the Senate from 1992 to 2004. In the 2004 presidential elections, he served as campaign manager of Poe, who placed second to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo amid criticisms that the election was marred by fraud. Sotto then had a falling-out with the camp of former Joseph Estrada which had him running under the administration's Team Unity in the 2007 senatorial elections. He lost. A year later, Sotto was appointed as DDB chairman. At present, the NPC is said to be choosing who among Senators Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero will be the party's standard bearer in the 2010 elections. [See: NPC solid behind Chiz, Loren despite Noynoy announcement] In a GMA News report, Escudero and Legarda said talks are ongoing between them and that an announcement may come between October 10 to 22. Escudero celebrates his 40th birthday on October 10 while the death anniversary of Legarda's mother falls on the 22nd. - GMANews.TV