TURNING TABLES | Faction loyal to Duterte warns Pacquiao may be expelled from PDP-Laban

July 13, 2021 , 07:45 PM

By Beatrice Puente, News5 Digital

(July 13, 2021) – The faction loyal to President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday warned a senator and boxing icon could be expelled from the Partido Demokratiko Pilipinas-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) for attacking the leader, said the energy secretary and party’s vice chairman.

Alfonso Cusi said Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao should be held accountable for staining the president’s reputation because of his wild accusations of corruption. Duterte is the party’s chairman while Pacquiao is the acting president.

“Possibility of his being expelled? Yes,” Cusi said in an interview with the ABS-CBN News Channel. “Because you’re accusing the chairman of the party of ill-doings that you cannot prove. Parang character assassination po ‘yan. What if I accuse him and then, suddenly, I just leave and go to my province and sleep?”

Cusi leads a faction within the ruling party that seeks to oust Pacquiao from his position as acting president following the senator’s criticisms against the administration, particularly on corruption.

Pacquiao had also expelled Cusi and two others, but they laughed off the resolution removing them from the party, saying it violated the party’s by-laws. They will contest the resolution and will retaliate by the end of the week by removing Pacquiao from the party.

These actions and counteractions might result in the ruling party break-up with the original members led by the son of PDP-Laban founder, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, supporting Pacquiao; and the majority of elected and appointed officials siding with Cusi’s faction.

Before he left for the United States to prepare for his boxing match, Pacquiao had accused the Duterte administration of graft, suggesting some agencies, including the energy department, were making tons of money from illegal transactions

But he did not go into specifics.

Cusi shot back, challenging the senator to substantiate his allegations or shut up if he had no evidence to back it up.”If you cannot prove it, you better shut up,” he said.

He also said the corruption allegations were baseless.

Pacquiao had asked the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to open an inquiry into the corruption claims against the health, energy, and social welfare departments, but the panel leader refused to open a hearing without his presence.

Duterte, however, has remained unimpressed with the senator’s exposé, slamming Pacquiao’s insistence that P10 billion worth of social amelioration funds were lost to corruption.

In a party meeting last week, Duterte also brought up the alleged P2.2-billion tax liability incurred by the boxing icon before the Court of Tax Appeals. Pacquiao won the case in 2018.

“I think he is talking about P10 billion from nowhere. Papayag ba naman ako? Papayag ba kami? Mga secretary ng departamento na may mawala na P10 billion,” Duterte told in his public addressed aired late Monday. “That is a statement coming from a guy that is punch-drunk, lasing.”

(MM)

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