Bacolod mayor to lead ‘mass resignation’ from PDP in Negros

BACOLOD CITY—More political leaders in Negros Occidental who used to be allied with former President Rodrigo Duterte are set to leave the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).

Among these officials is Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez who said he would formally resign as PDP-Laban chair of Negros Occidental, along with other political party members in the province.

Benitez, in an interview, said other Negrense politicians who joined the PDP with him, when former President Duterte was the country’s top executive, were also leaving the party.

He said they were still discussing which national party they would join.

Unhappy

Benitez said there would be a mass resignation of Negros Occidental officials from PDP-Laban because they were “no longer happy” with the party.

The decision of Benitez came a week after party members in Victorias City resigned from the party when its leaders in the Visayas announced it would field a gubernatorial candidate against Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, who would be seeking reelection in May 2025.

The discontent along local party stalwarts erupted when lawyer Jesus Villanueva Hinlo, PDP deputy secretary general for Visayas and Negros Occidental Council president, earlier announced that they planned to field former Victorias City mayor Francis Frederick “Wantan” Palanca for governor against Lacson in the 2025 midterm elections.

But the announcement was allegedly made without consulting PDP-Laban members in the province.

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About 200 Negros Occidental officials took their oaths as PDP-Laban members in Bacolod City in September 2016, two months after Duterte assumed office. The Duterte-led PDP-Laban was the ruling party at the time.

‘Bogus’ party member

Cadiz City Mayor Salvador Escalante, the secretary general of the local political coalition United Negros Alliance, was among those who allied himself with PDP-Laban. However, he said there was no need for him to resign from PDP-Laban since he never received his appointment papers as a member.

Escalante said he, then governor Alfredo Marañon, and other Negros Occidental officials underwent membership training and took their oath as PDP-Laban members in September 2016 but never received papers acknowledging them as party members.

“There is no need for me to resign since I think I was not accepted into the party. From the onset, I was a bogus PDP Laban member,” Escalante said. INQ