The leader of one of the two warring factions of the ruling PDP-Laban party is willing to forge an alliance with Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio’s regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago, a source said Wednesday.
Lawyer Rogelio Garcia, the leader of one of the factions, said nothing would stop them from talking about alliances with other political parties.
“Hugpong doesn’t prohibit itself from having alliances. We are more than willing to talk it out with them and discuss the possibility of an alliance,” Garcia told ANC. He said former Senator Manny Villar’s Nacionalista Party had already signed an alliance with Hugpong.
Duterte-Carpio has offered help to the PDP-Laban amid the internal conflict.
“If there is anything that HNP can do to help PDP Laban, our group is ready to assist them,” President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter said last Friday.
Garcia’s faction has been in conflict with the faction led by Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, the PDP-Laban president.
Pimentel earlier said the members of Garcia’s group had already been expelled from the party.
The rift between the two factions started when Pimentel and former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez allowed the mass oathtaking of new members who did not even undergo the basic seminar, Garcia said.
He said they had repeatedly aired this concern to Pimentel and Alvarez out of fear that “opportunists” would come to President Duterte’s party without understanding its core values, but they said they were snubbed.
Garcia said Duterte had vowed to help unite the two factions. For him, the only way to resolve the issue was for Pimentel’s group to acknowledge the officers elected during their own mass oathtaking.
