A PARTY-LIST group on Thursday said their movement to pair presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte with vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was gaining ground, as shown by recent polls.
The sports-oriented PBA party-list has been at the forefront of the Alyansang Duterte-Bongbong Marcos or “AlDuB,” even though Duterte is running with Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, while Marcos is running with presidential candidate Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.
“Given the enthusiasm that we experienced on the ground, we are optimistic that Duterte for president and Marcos for vice president will score very high,” PBA party-list spokesman Jericho Nograles said.
In February, the PBA party-list group hosted an AlDuB Convention in Davao City.
Nograles said his group supports AlDuB because both leaders carry sports development in their respective platforms.
Since Feb. 9, Nograles said he personally led the PBA campaign in the provinces of Surigao, Agusan, Comval, Davao Oriental, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental, Socsargen, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Bohol, Quirino, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya and Laguna.
Former PBA representative Mark Sambar led the party-list drive in Metro Manila.
“AlDuB is phenomenal,” Nograles said. “People just could not hide their enthusiasm each time the PBA will push for the Duterte-Marcos combination.”
Nograles said a Duterte-Marcos team-up fuses the best of the “Solid North” and the emerging “Solid South.”
In a forum Thursday, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban ng Bayan president, said he believed his party’s candidate, Duterte, will win big in Metro Manila and Mindanao as well as in some parts of Luzon and the Visayas.
“We will fight it out in Luzon. We will not neglect Southern Luzon and Central Luzon. We have a fair share. In Metro Manila, we expect to win. [In] Eastern Visayas and Central Visayas, part of the Cebuano-speaking parts of the Visayas, we expect to win. And of course, we expect to dominate Mindanao,” he told reporters.
“We are confident, that is my analysis. I am divulging this because it is not a top secret, and it is reflected in the surveys.”
Duterte has a big fighting chance to win, he said.
But Pimentel warned party members to leave PDP-Laban if they cannot support both Duterte and Cayetano.
“If you can’t accept the Duterte-Cayetano [tandem], get out of the party. That is a party discipline,” he said.