Villar denies being Arroyo’s ’secret candidate’

Posted on | February 7, 2010 | No Comments

Nationalista Party standard bearer Senator Manuel Villar Jr. on Saturday denied that he was the “secret candidate” of the administration and that he met with First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo at the house of Mike Defensor on January 7, as contained in several text messages now circulating among the public.

“Hindi ko pa nakikita si First Gentleman at ang Presidente, hindi pa kami nag-uusap since na ako ay natanggal sa pagkapangulo ng Senado,” Villar told reporters before his speech at the national convention of Philippine Guardians Brotherhood Inc (PGBI) held at the Tarlac State University.

The text messages claimed that Villar agreed to a deal to help President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who is running for representative of 2nd district of Pampanga, become House Speaker and to protect her from legal suits.

Villar also denied going to Syria, as claimed by one text message, as well as insinuations that he had a hand in the issuance of a warrant of arrest against Senator Panfilo Lacson, or that he had a “deal” with the DOJ (Department of Justice) o any government institution.

In a separate interview, NP spokesman and senatorial bet Gilbert Remulla said Villar’s rivals are trying to link the senator to the administration due to the supposed “kiss of death” of President Arroyo, as shown in the poor performance of the administration’s presidential bet, former Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr, in past poll surveys.

Remulla said that while Villar has no connection with the administration, the relatives of Liberal Party standard bearer Senator Benigno Simeon Aquino III were occupying several positions in the government.

He named, among others, Lupita Aquino Kashiwahara, Mrs Arroyo’s image maker; Tessie Aquino-Oreta, head of the Early Childhood Care and Development Council; Jose ‘Peping’ Cojuangco, head of Philippine Olympic Committee; his wife Magarita ‘Tingting’ Cojuangco, president of Philippine Public Safety College; and Paul Aquino.

“Sobra talagang desperado yung mga taga-Liberal Party. Alam namin na sila ang nagkakalat niyan (These Liberal Party guys are truly desperate. We know they’re the ones spreading it.) We have our inside information that this came from their special operations team na kinakalat nila (that they’ve been spreading) through text messaging. There is absolutely no truth (to that),” he said.

Villar’s camp also defended his huge spending on political ads, saying that his presidential rivals are also spending big sums of money but the difference was they were not able to make their message connect with the voters.

Remulla explained that “gumagastos din naman yung kalaban, gumagastos din sila at meron silang mga advertisement kung saan nagra-rap pa nga ang kanilang standard bearer pero hindi kumokonekta.”

(Our opponents also spend, and they have advertisements wherein their standard bearer even does rap songs but fails to connect.)

The NP stalwart was referring to the infomercial of Senator Benigno Simeon Aquino III, Liberal Party presidential candidate, where the latter was seen rapping part of the jingle. —JV/HS, GMANews.TV

AMITA O. LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
02/07/2010 | 03:02 AM

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/183313/villar-denies-being-pgmas-secret-candidate

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