PDP-Laban may be erased from political landscape amid party leadership squabble —Castro

The membership of Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) may soon dwindle amid confusion on the heels of a recently-concluded election of new leaders of the ruling party, a lawmaker said on Saturday.

"With this development baka mabura na naman ang PDP-Laban on the face of the political landscape or kung hindi man mabura its membership will tremendously dwindle," House Deputy Speaker Fredenil Castro said in a news forum at the University of the Philippines Hotel in Quezon City.

Deputy Speaker Fredenil Castro at a forum in Quezon City on Saturday, July 28, 2018, answers some questions from the media regarding the contested House Minority Leader position after former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was installed as Speaker, replacing Pantaleon Alvarez, changing the power relations at the House of Representatives. GMA News

On Friday, supposed officials of the regional councils of PDP-Laban elected a new set of leaders of the ruling party. 

The said "national assembly" retained President Rodrigo Duterte as the party chairman and Special Assistant to the President Bong Go as the auditor, but replaced Senator Koko Pimentel and ousted Housted Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez as the party's president and secretary-general.

Pimentel, however, dismissed the election conducted by the supposed members of his political party.

The possible outcome of the seeming unrest in the ruling party is that the members of the PDP-Laban may return to their original parties or shift allegiance to Davao City Mayor and presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio’s regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP), Castro said.

"It's either na babalik sa original parties nila or they will join the Hugpong ng Pagbabago ng Mayor Sara Duterte," the lawmaker said.

With reports surfacing that members of the PDP-Laban in the House of Representatives were planning to shift to Duterte-Carpio's regional party, it is possible that the HNP may rise to the national level.

"Considering the development in PDP, there is nothing that will prevent the Hugpong ng Pagbabago to amend their constitution and by-laws and make it as national party," Castro said.

Davao City Representative Karlo Nograles, a PDP-Laban stalwart, earlier floated that the ruling party may soon undergo a reorganization following  Alvarez's removal from the helm of the lower chamber. —KG, GMA News