New 'ideology-based' political party launched, to support Chiz, Koko, Bam in 2013 polls

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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

MANILA, Philippines – A few months before the 2013 elections, a new political party has formally launched its bid for power. 

Claiming that it is an ideology-based group, the Centrist Democratic Party (CDP) said it would campaign for reelectionist Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and youth leader Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, who are all running under the administration’s Liberal Party-led coalition.

While a “small” party, the CDP will be “the party to watch because we have an ideology,” Cagayan Representative Rufus Rodriguez, the party’s newly-installed president, said at a news conference in Quezon City on Tuesday.

“This is a new dawn in Philippine politics.  It’s about time a party stands up for a real ideology,” Rodriguez said, noting that members of traditional political parties often leave their party after getting elected and jump to the dominant party.

Aquino, who was guest during the event, welcomed the party’s endorsement, saying he was proud to be among the crop of young leaders that the CDP had chose to support. 

Only two years in existence, the CDP was formally accredited as a political party in September this year. According to CDP, it has a total of 9,594 members in 16 regions.

In the May 2013 elections, Rodriguez said a total of 74 candidates would run under the party, including 12 guest candidates.

Lito Monico Lorenzana, CDP chairman, said the party “abhors the politics of patronage.”

He boasted that the CDP is a party “owned, funded and controlled by its dues-paying members and not by a single  patron or groups of individuals, who are out to assume political power.”

CDP is guided by the following principles, according to its officers: 

• Creation of a truly functioning democracy and rule of law;
• Establishment of a thriving social market economy;
• Building of strong and sustainable political parties; and,
• Adoption and practice of the principle of subsidiary in all structures of governance towards a vision of a federal republic.

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