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NPC stalwarts want Chiz to explain decision to quit party


Senator Francis Escudero needs to explain his abrupt decision to leave the Nationalist People’s Coalition, his former partymates said Wednesday. “Right now, we don’t know what we are going to do because we have not consulted. We don’t really know all the facts. We want to consolidate all the facts. (He needs to explain) at least to some of us on a personal level," Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco told reporters after the NPC emergency meeting in Quezon City. Escudero was being groomed as the NPC’s standard bearer for the 2010 polls before he decided to leave the party. He has been with the NPC since he first ran for Congress in 1998.
FOR GMANEWS.TV'S 2010 ELECTION COVERAGE, VISIT YOURVOX “A lot us of have invested our time so it should not be normal for us not to have a sense of lost opportunity. Namuhunan kami ng panahon. Binibida namin siya. That is the commitment on our part na pinuhunan namin. We feel, I believe, that he would make a great president," Cojuangco added. Despite this, Valenzuela Rep. Rex Gatchalian, NPC spokesman, assured party supporters that the NPC remains unfazed and solid and will participate in next year’s polls with Senator Loren Legarda as its vice presidential bet. “The party is intact. We are on the process of finalizing our national (senatorial) and local slate," he said. Cojuangco added that they “have gone through several elections in the past where we don’t even have a senatorial candidate and the party stayed together, survived all those years. But now we have a focal point, we have a vice presidential candidate, a very strong one, and she will lead us to victory." He said the party is solid behind the candidacy of Legarda. Legarda welcomed the support of the party. “Napakasolido ng kanilang suporta sa aking paghahangad na maglingkod bilang bise presidente ng Pilipinas. Bagamat nagkapuwang para sa pangulo ay handa naman ako maglingkod bilang bise presidente. I will lead the party to victory," she said. Asked if she would instead run for president, Legarda said, "I declared already for vice president, sa 2016 maghintay muna kayo." Rep. Cojuangco said the party has yet to discuss who to get as standard bearer, but maintained that there will be no alliances with other parties amid talks that the NPC will support the presidential bid of Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and that Legarda was allegedly negotiating with Senator Manuel Villar Jr. He asked the public to give the NPC time to consult with their members "and see what we are going to do". “We have our own identity, we have our own doctrine, we have our own philosophy… The statements that we are entertaining another presidential candidate is completely without basis," Cojuangco said. Teodoro was a member of the NPC before he decided to join the administration party Lakas-Kampi-CMD, which has chosen him as its standard bearer. Villar is the imminent standard bearer of the Nacionalista Party (NP), which he has been busy rebuilding in the past few years.
FOR GMANEWS.TV'S 2010 ELECTION COVERAGE, VISIT YOURVOX Unexpected Former Isabela governor Faustino Dy, chairman of the NPC, said he had no idea about what Escudero was up to and that his blood pressure went up when the senator told him he was quitting the party. “Biglang tumaas yung blood pressure ko kagabi, unexpected kasi, naging 142/108," Dy said. He said the senator called him up at around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to meet with him. Escudero arrived at Dy’s house in Quezon City 30 minutes later. “Kagabi nagpaalam siya sa akin, sinabi niya na aalis siya sa partido at maga-announce siya bukas, I respect that decision. Hindi niya sinabi kung tatakbo siya o hindi. Sabi niya para malaya siya na hindi madidiktahan ng partido. Hindi niya naliwanag ‘yun at sandali lang kami nag-usap," the former governor said. (Last night, he asked permission from me, saying he was leaving the party and that he was going to make an announcement the next day. He did not say whether he would run or not. He said he wanted to be free and not be tied to the party. He did not explain because we just talked briefly). Earlier in the day, Escudero said he informed Dy of his decision but not the party chairman emeritus, business tycoon Eduardo “Danding" Cojuangco. Dy said that before Escudero’s announcement there was no indication that the latter would quit the party. The younger Cojuangco agreed to this. He said what he knew was the original schedule of Escudero’s announcement of his presidential bid set at Bahay ng Alumni, University of the Philippines, at around 6 p.m. “I thought it would be at 6 p.m. so I scheduled a hearing at 10 a.m.," he said. - GMANews.TV

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