Amid rumors being spread by some political camps that former President Joseph Estrada will be withdrawing from the presidential race and endorse Liberal Party standard bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino instead, Estrada’s spokesman Margaux Salcedo doused all talk on this scenario yesterday, saying this rumor spreading is nothing but psy-war.”The rumor being spread, reportedly by a political camp, had Estrada striking a deal with Aquino, with the former president backing out of the race and supporting Noynoy, in exchange for his son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada running with the Liberal Party.
The Erap camp also laughed off the rumored deal of Jinggoy wanting to run with the LP, saying that the Estradas don’t need the Liberal Party to win the Senate race.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is set to run under his father’s party, Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, Salcedo said.
“He is number one right now among the senatoriables. His father is founder of a party whose presidential candidate in 1998 won by the biggest margin in our country’s history. He has no need to join the Liberal Party. The rumor is false.”
She stressed that “President Erap is a man who is true to his word. He has declared that he will run. There is no more backing out at this point.
“Besides, he would have no reason to choose Sen. Noynoy over the other presidentiables. At this point, Senator Noynoy is no more deserving of the presidency than Senator Villar or even Senator Chiz or any other opposition presidentiable for that matter,” Salcedo said.
A source from the Estrada camp also told the Tribune that this rumor of Estrada opting out of the race and endorsing Aquino is also being spread “with the intention of bringing down the ratings of Erap, and to get the masses to switch to other presidential bets.”
The source bared that some LP members had earlier asked the Estrada camp to consider withdrawing from the presidential race and support Noynoy Aquino instead, if the survey ratings show Aquino to be the front runner.
“This is probably why surveys are being massaged in his favor, to get Erap to withdraw from the race and get his support.”
Meanwhile, Agusan Rep. Ompong Plaza yesterday endorsed the former president to Mindanaoans as he joined Estrada for the first time on the latter’s Lakbay Pasasalamat tour.
“Now that he has declared his intention to run for president, I am proud to say that he is my president because I believe that of all the presidentiables, Erap is the most sincere,” Plaza said.
“We Mindanaoans really felt his sincerity in his efforts to bring lasting peace to Mindanao when he was president and we believe he is the president who will finally bring peace to Mindanao if given another chance in 2010.”
Plaza added that he also believes that all the accusations against Estrada that led to his impeachment are baseless. “I truly believe that President Estrada did not steal a single centavo from government coffers. In fact, he was ousted precisely because he is the only president who had the courage to stand up to big businesses who were trying to take advantage of government funds at the expense of the Filipino poor,” Plaza added.
Sen. Manuel Villar, commenting on his “character and integrity” was quoted as saying that he proved he has character and integrity when he initiated impeachment proceedings against Estrada when he was Senate President.
The House of Representatives and impeachment rules were disregarded by Villar and the political opposition then when Villar, Speaker, sent the impeachment complaint to the Senate while refusing to have the congressmen vote in the plenary.
He also failed to explain, however, why he joined Estrada’s Genuine Opposition senatorial slate in 2007, if he believed that Estrada had to be impeached.
Estrada is back on tour for his Lakbay Pasasalamat after finishing shooting his comeback movie, the comedy film Ang Tanging Pamilya.
Source: http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20091114hed6.html
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