Pimentel defends use of PDP name

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Monday defended his use of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino Lakas ng Bayan (PDP Laban) name, asserting that the dispute between the party’s two factions remained unresolved.

“At the Comelec level, the rebel faction of then Secretary (Alfonso) Cusi won… but of course, we elevated it to the Supreme Court. This is still pending before the Supreme Court,” Pimentel said in a television interview.

“We know the practical effect of the Comelec decision. In its eyes, it will only entertain the Cusi faction as the representatives of PDP Laban,” he said.

Last week, the PDP Laban faction chaired by former President Rodrigo Duterte denounced Pimentel’s “illegal use” of the party name in an official letter to Senate President Francis Escudero. In the letter, Pimentel called for immediate action on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte.

“Pimentel no longer has any legal or moral right to use the name PDP Laban because the Commission on Elections had ruled with finality on 23 March 2023 that the group led by former President Rodrigo Duterte was the true and legitimate PDP Laban,” the party said in a statement.

It added, “Therefore, only the group led by President Duterte has the right to use the party name.”

The party also reiterated its firm opposition to the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, the elder daughter of the former president and current party chairman.

“The party is vehemently opposed to the impeachment of the Vice President, and his (Pimentel’s) use of the PDP Laban name in an official letter to the Senate President made it appear that the party had taken a different position,” it said.

In 2023, the Comelec en banc upheld its second division’s decision declaring the PDP Laban wing led by former Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi as the “true and official” faction. Cusi had filed a petition in 2021 to declare the Pimentel-led faction illegitimate.

Days before the May 2022 elections, the Comelec’s second division granted Cusi’s petition in an 11-page resolution, favoring his faction over the Pimentel-Manny Pacquiao-led group.

The poll body also ruled that the Cusi wing’s national assembly in Pampanga in July 2022 was valid, during which Pimentel and Pacquiao were expelled as party president and chairman, respectively.

The PDP Laban was founded in 1982 by Pimentel’s father, the late Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., and the late senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. as an opposition coalition against the dictatorship of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

The Cusi-led PDP Laban supported the presidential bid of Marcos’s son and namesake, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., which Pimentel had previously described as a the “total anti-thesis of everything PDP Laban stands for.”