LEFTISTS running for the Senate under the Nacionalista Party banner will find themselves in the same ticket with Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator who persecuted them during the Martial Law years.
Nacionalista standard-bearer Senator Manuel Villar, who announced Marcos’ inclusion in the party’s 12-member slate, said the two sides would be able to transcend their differences and coexist.
He also said he expected leftist party-list organizations such as Bayan Muna, Gabriela and Anakpawis to accept his offer to be represented in the Nacionalista lineup.
“We may have ideological differences. But let us bear in mind that we have a common objective to fight poverty. If we do not set aside these differences, how can we succeed in attaining this objective?” Villar told the press after he and Marcos signed an agreement to form an alliance between the Nacionalistas and the Martial Law-era KBL.
But political observers said a conflict between the Marcoses and the leftist groups was bound to arise, especially over the issue of ill-gotten wealth against the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, his relatives and cronies.
They warned that this could cause a split in the Nacionalista Party that could be worse than the rift within the Liberal Party that broke out when former Senator Sergio Osmeña left the party’s ticket to protest the inclusion of former Planning Secretary Ralph Recto into the Liberals’ senatorial lineup.
An alliance between the Nacionalistas and the leftist party-list groups appeared imminent after their talks with the Liberal Party bogged down.
Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said the unresolved dispute between the farmers of Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, partly owned by the Aquinos, remained a thorny issue in their attempt to strike a partnership with the Liberals led by its standard-bearer, Senator Benigno Aquino III.
Morever, Ocampo said Aquino and other LP leaders could not make a definite commitment whether they could accommodate their nominees into the party’s senatorial lineup. So far, the Liberals had given only one slot to Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros Baraquel.
Asked whether the Nacionalistas and the leftist organizations were about to forge an alliance, Villar said the ball was now in their court.
During the Nacionalista Party event, Marcos’ sister, the KBL secretary general and former lawmaker Imee Marcos, called on politicians and the people to stop blaming their father for the nation’s woes.
She said the same thing of the late President Corazon Aquino, mother of Senator Benigno Aquino III, the Liberal Party’s standard-bearer.
“The coming polls should no longer involve those who passed away, but should focus on candidates themselves according to their qualifications and fitness for public office,” she said.
On separate occasions, Ocampo had said the Nacionalista Party was willing to allot two senatorial seats to leftist groups, but Villar, who had presented his platform of government to the party-list organizations, was mum on the topic.
Ocampo said one point of disagreement was Villar’s stand on prosecuting President Gloria Arroyo when she stepped down.
Villar has said that if he were elected president, he would not initiate the filing of charges against Mrs. Arroyo, but would not block such actions from others either.
He said Marcos was qualified to become a senator not because he is the son of a former president but because of his personal qualifications and achievements.
“I am sure that some will try to revive our nation’s political past that has divided the country. I dare not do that,’’ he said.
Marcos said Villar deserved the presidency because “he is a simple person with simple solution even to complicated problems.”
