Villar: There’s no talk of an NPC, NP tie-up to support Poe

Senator Cynthia Villar at the hearing on the development of the Philippines’ horse racing industry. July 16, 2015 (Photo from Villar’s website)

MANILA –Nacionalista Party (NP) member Senator Cynthia Villar downplayed reports of her political party’s supposed tactical alliance with the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) to support Senator Grace Poe’s presidential candidacy should she ever decide to run in next year’s national elections.

According to Villar, NP members would first lay their own political plans for the coming national elections before they could start considering backing independent candidates or candidates from a different party.

It can be recalled that NPC President Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao earlier disclosed that his political party has been discussing a partnership with the NP to support the potential candidacy of Poe and her running mate Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero.

Aggabao, however, later on clarified his statement.

“I am not privy to any talks between NP-NPC. I don’t even know if there is any such talk. What I have stated is Poe and Chiz are running as independent candidates and that any political party would be free to adopt them,” he said in a Philippine Daily Inquirer report.

Villar, for her part, claimed that she did not know the basis of Aggabao’s earlier statement.

“Former Senate President Manny Villar and I are as surprised as everyone else to learn about this announcement,” she said.

“To reiterate, we have to first determine the plans of our own members before we can express support for nonmembers. We are very proud of our party,” she added.

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, also an NP member, agreed with confirmed Villar’s statements. But with no one in their party expressing interest in joining the presidential race, Trillanes acknowledged that it was possible for them to support Poe.

Trillanes, on the other hand, noted that backing Escudero would be a different matter. With NP members Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and himself eyeing the country’s second highest post, Trillanes believed that the political party would opt to support its own candidate.

NP and NPC are members of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s coalition. Although both independents, Poe and Escudero ran alongside the coalition in the previous 2013 elections.