Lying about LP
Obviously, Lagman’s speech is a lot of hot air. The quality and excellence of LP members Lagman cited are products of his wild imagination.
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Daily TribuneObviously, Lagman’s speech is a lot of hot air. The quality and excellence of LP members Lagman cited are products of his wild imagination.
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It was a funeral wake masquerading as a political party caucus.
That was the apt description given to the "national executive council meeting" of the moribund and discredited Liberal Party held at the Club Filipino in San Juan City last week.
Edcel Lagman, the hopelessly misinformed and delirious congressman from Albay, was elected LP President, while ex-Senator and recently defeated vice-presidential candidate Francis Pangilinan was installed as party chairman.
Other washed-out politicians elected as party officials include Erin Tañada and Teddy Baguilat.
Tañada lost miserably in the 2019 senatorial election. He landed in 27th place, with several virtual unknowns getting more votes than he did.
Baguilat was trounced in the May 2022 senatorial race. He ended up in 28th place.
Lagman cited the "quality and excellence" of the party's members in his acceptance speech.
For his part, Pangilinan said the LP stood for "effective governance and accountable leadership."
Former Vice President Leni Robredo, who was soundly rejected by the electorate in the recent presidential election, delivered a pre-recorded message where she praised the politicians who remained loyal to the party.
Lagman, Pangilinan, and Robredo are really getting senile, or are simply full of themselves.
Obviously, Lagman's speech is a lot of hot air. The quality and excellence of LP members Lagman cited are products of his wild imagination. The fact that remains is that in the May 2019 midterm elections, the LP could not even field a full 12-man slate for its senatorial lineup. LP officials had to settle for just eight candidates whom they called the Otso Diretso ticket. Not a single one of those eight bets won.
Bam Aquino tried to get himself re-elected senator under the Otso Diretso ticket, but he was scorned by the voters.
Pangilinan's speech about the LP's supposed "effective governance and accountable leadership" is pure hogwash.
From 2010 until 2016, the LP dominated Philippine politics under the incompetent stewardship of the late President Noynoy Aquino. That administration was notorious for its blatant abuse and misuse of congressional pork barrel funds, a highly politicized judiciary, and the death of 44 elite policemen abandoned by the LP-led government in the now infamous Mamasapano massacre in Maguindanao.
The widespread corruption under the LP-led administration finally ended when the LP's presidential bet, former Senator Mar Roxas, lost miserably to the winner, President Rodrigo Duterte, in the May 2016 presidential election.
All that notwithstanding, Pangilinan thinks he can dupe the people into believing his false claim.
This is not the first time Pangilinan made a false claim in public. When he ran for vice president in the recent elections, Pangilinan promised the voters that if he is elected vice president, the price of food will go down. What a lie!
For the record, a vice president has no power, executive or legislative, to bring down the price of food. The price of food is determined by market forces, and not on the whim of a vice president.
As for Robredo, she has no moral authority to praise party loyalty in the LP.
It will be recalled that Robredo abandoned the LP in the 2022 presidential election, and opted instead to run as an independent candidate. She decided to run as an independent because she was obviously aware that the LP was so discredited in the eyes of the electorate that running under the LP banner was a political kiss of death.
The LP name and logo were never in any of Robredo's political propaganda in the 2022 presidential election. She conveniently disassociated herself from yellow, the color identified with the LP, and chose pink as her hue in the campaign.
Now, Robredo speaks about party loyalty. What does Robredo take the public for — fools?
With party leaders like Lagman, Pangilinan, and Robredo, the LP is bound for political oblivion. Indeed, the LP event was a funeral wake masquerading as a political party caucus.
