MANILA - The party of Vice President-elect Jejomar Binay claims to be getting a fair share of new fans following the victory of its candidate in the last elections.
Aquilino Pimentel III, the secretary general Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), said about 10 people have come knocking at their door wanting to join the party.
This is happening even before Binay has even taken office, said Pimentel, indicating the number could grow.
“I see a bright future for the party because as early as now, many are lining up who are willing to take their oath before the incoming vice pesident or to take their oath as party members. Some are returning to the PDP,” Pimentel told the Kapihan sa Sulo forum.
Pimentel's father and namesake, outgoing Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., jokingly said that the PDP-Laban was turning from a “taxicab party to a multi-bus party,” referring to the joke about how the members of a small party could fit into a tiny car or taxi.
The younger Pimentel said some of those who want to jump to Binay's party come from the administration Lakas-Kampi-CMD, the Nacionalista Party and the Nationalist People's Coalition. He did not give any names.
But he said there will be a screening procedure as those who want to join now could easily abandon the party when its fortunes turn.
“We will be strict now because actually PDP-Laban has already experienced how it is to be big. We had many members during the time of Cory [the late President Corazon Aquino], and we know that if you are not strict, you will be abandoned,” the young Pimentel said.
He said PDP-Laban has some 20,000 members nationwide, but many of them are private citizens and very few hold government posts.
But at least now the party has the country’s second-highest official, he pointed out.
The young Pimentel said Cory Aquino ran under the PDP-Laban during the 1986 snap elections against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Aquino's only son, Sen. Benigno Aquino III, the President-elect, ran under the Liberal Party of which he is a member.
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