NPC leader says they don't know of any merger with NP

A former lawmaker of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) revealed on Tuesday that she and other members of the NPC national convention were neither consulted nor informed about any merger between the NPC and the Nacionalista Party (NP). Lualhati Antonino, a former member of the Lower House representing South Cotabato’s first district, told Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioners Lucenito Tagle, Gregorio Larrazabal, Elias Yusoph, and Rene Sarmiento that she was “shocked and surprised" to read in the dailies about the existence of the NP-NPC Coalition. “The NPC’s national convention did not authorize the NPC central committee to do such thing. The central committee did not ask for the permission of the convention," Antonino said, adding that she is a member of the national convention. The national convention is the party’s highest policy-making body, while the central committee implements what has been agreed upon by the convention. Antonino said that even Mark Cojuangco, the son of NPC founder Danding Cojuangco, was surprised upon hearing the news. She said the young Cojuangco belittled the news about the merger as “papel lang iyan (that’s just in paper)" and “not really important," but at the same time vowed to “try to get to the bottom of it." Despite this, Antonino has not filed any written complaint to the NPC leadership. “The signatories are all my friends. I was waiting for a chance for them to explain what happened," she explained. Antonino openly said she was supporting LP’s Benigno Simeon ‘Noynoy’ Aquino and Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas and not NPC’s Loren Legarda. “[I am endorsing Roxas] because I believe he is better qualified for the job," Antonino said, adding that “everybody in NPC knows who I am backing and so far, nobody has asked me to leave. If they ask me to resign, why not?" LP, the NP-NPC Coalition, and the Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) led by Joseph Estrada are all vying for the poll body’s nod to become the dominant minority party in May, entitling one of them to the sixth copy of the election returns (ERs). Both the NP and NPC are registered as individual political parties with the Comelec, but the LP said the coalition was formed only last January 28, six months after the deadline for registration of political parties lapsed. (See: LP opposes NP-NPC application as dominant minority party) LP campaign manager Florencio “Butch" Abad said that the the NP-NPC coalition was only formed to meet the poll body’s requirement that the dominant minority party should field the most number of candidates in the national and local elections. The LP is fielding 7,819 candidates from senator down to councilors against NP’s 7,160. But when added to the NPC’s 3,130, the NP-NPC Coalition’s number rises to 10,290. As this developed, the hearing on the LP’s complaint to junk the NP-NPC coalition’s petition to be recognized as dominant minority resumed on Tuesday. The next hearing has been set for Friday, March 12. —JV, GMANews.TV