By Junex Doronio
MANILA — Politics make strange bedfellows, as an adage goes.
And barely a year before the 2025 midterm polls, political analysts saw the battle lines are now drawn between those supporting the leadership of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in a “tactical alliance” with the pro-US political forces and nationalists against China’s “creeping invasion” against the backers of former President Rodrigo Duterte who has remained unabashedly pro-China.
Dr. Edna Co, a former dean at the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance, cited the Liberal Party (LP), a former ruling party that was in the traditional opposition role during the Duterte administration, can find many points of unity with the Marcos administration, Co said, including on foreign policy.
She noted that the LP and the Marcos Jr. administration are aligned on issues like sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
Maharlika NuMedia gathered that in preparation for the 2025 elections, the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas has been launched, primarily composed of the President’s party, the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), and his cousin Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez’s ruling party, the Lakas – Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD).
Co said members of the traditional opposition, including the Liberal Party, could end up on the administration’s senatorial slate in 2025 if there are points of unity with the newly announced Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas.
For his part, De La Salle University (DLSU) political science professor Anthony Lawrence Borja called the new alliance “a case of coalition-building in a weak party system.”
He pointed out that PBBM and Romualdez seem to be “separating the promise of Political Unity from the UniTeam, giving it a coalition that transcends the Marcos-Duterte alliance.”
Recently, Duterte renamed his party PDP and dropped the word “Laban.”
(el Amigo/MNM)
