Pacquiao: Cusi-wing support for Bongbong a slap on PDP-Laban founded vs.Marcos

Senator Manny Pacquiao on Tuesday urged all members of the PDP-Laban to shun the endorsement of presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. by the party faction led Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.

Pacquiao, who's also running for president, is the leader of the other PDP-Laban faction alongside Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, the son of party founder and opposition leader during the first Marcos regime Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

“Baka nalimutan ni Cusi na ang PDP ay nabuo against sa Marcos regime. Baka nakalimutan lang niya. Lahat ng miyembro ng PDP, huwag po natin sundin si Cusi,” Pacquiao said.

[Maybe Cusi forgot that the PDP was formed against the Marcos regime. Maybe he just forgot. I urge all members of the PDP not to follow Cusi.]

""Yang PDP Laban na 'yan nabuo 'yan against Marcos, tapos sasapi kay Marcos? Isang sampal sa mga miyembro ng PDP," he added.

[PDP Laban was formed against Marcos, only to support Marcos later on? That is a slap in the face against PDP members.]

The two factions of the ruling party—Cusi and President Rodrigo Duterte on one side and Pacquiao and Koko on the other—are contesting recognition before the Commission on Elections.

PDP-Laban was formed in 1982 with the coming together of Pimentel's Philippine Democratic Party and then opposition leader former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.'s Lakas ng Bansa or Laban.

Aquino's widow Corazon Aquino ran against President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 snap elections under the PDP-Laban banner.

PDP-Laban returned to power in 2016 when then Davao City Mayor Duterte won the presidency as its member. 

Pacquiao said he was not picking up a fight with Cusi.

“Hindi ako nang-aaway sa kaniya, pero pag-isipan niyang mabuti, isipin niyang mabuti kung totoo siyang nagmamalasakit sa partido,” he said.

Koko earlier in the day slammed the Cusi faction's support for the presidential candidacy the late former dictator's son.

“With this latest action from Sec. Cusi and his cohorts, they have manifested that they are total strangers to PDP LABAN. They don’t even acknowledge that PDP LABAN was established to oppose the Marcos dictatorship,” Koko said.

“In Germany for example, a political party formed to oppose Adolf Hitler will definitely not support an Adolf Hitler Jr. Logic lang yan. Consistent with the PDP LABAN history and party constitution!” he added. —NB, GMA News