The PDP-Laban imbroglio has been occupying the news cycle for the past week. It wouldn’t really be such if only Koko Pimentel didn’t circumvent the process of making Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao the party President. I use the word “make” deliberately because Pacquiao’s “election” as party President did not happen. Pimentel resigned and “appointed” Pac-Man in his stead. He also lent him his trusted aide the Executive Director, Ron Munsayac.
Lito Banayo writes in his Manila Standard piece “The unravelling”…
He was elected executive vice-president, the president being Sen. Pimentel. Sen. Pimentel resigned his post, and thus the Pacman was elevated to the presidency. As, mind you, “acting” president, because no election by the national assembly of the PDP validated his succession.
As Banayo points out further down, Duterte is still the party Chairman. Pacquiao is setting himself up to fail because the two morons around him are pushing him to go against the President in their bid to get to Malacañan. Since this is very farfetched, one would think that they would just like to get a slice of the Kamao’s boxing fortune. A friend tipped me off last year that former Speaker Bebot Alvarez resigned as Secretary General due to the machinations of Koko and Munsayac. This was before the official announcement was made.
PDP was also beset by internal wranglings over the Speakership issue with Alan Peter Cayetano. Party discipline is hard to impose when your members are looking at the monies being dangled by two rivals. Duterte stepping in on the side of Al Cusi means that he’s not about to give up being the titular head of the party he brought to prominence. The problem with Koko is he can’t decide if he is with Duterte or the Opposition. He didn’t do a good job as Senate President. In his mind, he probably had the delusion that he could preside over a Dilawan comeback in the same manner his father did with former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada.
Internal survey has Pac-Man winning the Vice-Presidency hands down even without a party except if he’s up against Inday Sara “Daughterte” Duterte. This makes it a close contest. The question now is what does Pac-Man do after this episode? The Opposition has moist eyes on him. Pacquiao can easily win re-election to the Senate. The best move for him is to lay up and play safe. He shouldn’t listen to Koko playing political Svengali to him. Otherwise, it would be painful for Filipinos to watch him commit political suicide. Pac-Man should think of his political career as a boxing match. He’s still in the early rounds and what counts is he’s still standing after the last round.
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