MANILA, Philippines – After six years as ruling party followed by another six years as the subject of a strongman’s ire, the Liberal Party (LP) jump-started a return to legislative politics on Saturday, October 5, as its sectoral arm Mamamayang Liberal (ML) filed its Certificate of Nomination and Acceptance (CONA) as a party-list group.
ML’s nominees for its debut in electoral politics are stalwarts of the Liberal party.
The lineup is led by former senator Leila de Lima, a former justice secretary and senator who was detained for over seven years over trumped-up drug charges filed by the Rodrigo Duterte administration against her.
Former Ifugao Representative Teddy Baguilat and former Quezon representative Erin Tañada are also nominees of the party.
Mamamayang Liberal kicked off the filing of certificates of candidacy early Saturday by gathering supporters — who were asked to wear yellow or pink — at the Quirino Grandstand. The three nominees of the group then proceeded to the Manila Hotel, where the Commission in Elections is processing the certificates of candidacy of senators and party-list groups.
In her speech as first nominee, De Lima highlighted that the purpose of filing their CONA was “not just to run, but to fight.”
“Laban po ito sa lahat ng mga nagugutom, nagkakasakit at namamatay dahil sa kapabayaan, dahil sa kasakiman, dahil sa karahasan, at kasinungalingan ng mga pinuno natin,” she said.
(This is a fight for all who are hungry, sick, and dying because of neglect, greed, violence, and lies from our leaders.)
She looked back at her almost-seven years of incarceration stemming from the Duterte administration, which heavily prosecuted her as a fierce critic of the former president. Even after more than 2,400 days in jail, she remained determined to fight against injustices in the country.
“My conviction remains unshaken that the Filipino people deserve better. ML represents the marginalized, those left behind by a system that ignored them. We are here, we are offering ourselves once again for public service — we, nominees [former] congressman Ted Baguilat and Erin Tañada — to be the voice, a strong voice of the marginalized and to fight for true representation,” De Lima said in a mix of English and Filipino.
De Lima originally did not want to return to politics after she was released from detention in November 2023, saying that she wanted to “rebuild [her] life.” But going around schools and sectors for various engagements made her believe that this could still be her calling.
After all, her advocacies of human rights, democracy, rule of law, and good governance had not changed, and recent events have inspired her to return to public service.
De Lima also said that she believes she has a higher chance of winning at the House as a party-list representative rather than at the Senate.
“My pragmatic side tells me that I may have a hard time running for the Senate. It’s a tight race…but then I thought that through the party-list route, I am challenged to also engage, and the work is still related to advocacies I’ve always had,” she said.
De Lima also continues the fight to seek accountability from the Duterte-era officials who wronged her, including former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque.
“I cannot attain full vindication if they are not held accountable for what they did to me — false prosecution, fabrication of evidence — but that is not our main objective in running and becoming a part of the public sphere again. Because I will be working for justice, but more for justice for everyone else,” she said.
A continued fight
The colors that ML’s supporters showed two distinct periods in the LP’s not-so-distant past — as ruling party of the Philippines, and the backbone of a surprise grassroots presidential run that still ended up short.
LP was founded in the 1940s and found prominence during the dark days of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos’ Martial Law. The late senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., among Marcos’ fiercest critics, was a stalwart of the party then. Corazon Aquino, Ninoy’s widow who would go on to replace the dictator Marcos as president and lead the return of democracy to the Philippines, used yellow as her campaign color.
Decades later, when the Aquinos’ only son, the late Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III ran for president in 2010, yellow became the color of the Liberal Party.
But after six years of dominating Philippine politics under the late Noynoy Aquino, the LP quickly found itself in dire straits. While its 2016 vice presidential candidate, Leni Robredo, pulled off a surprise win, it found itself struggling to find its bearings under a Rodrigo Duterte presidency.
Its numbers quickly dwindled — as is usual in Philippine politics, where politicians switch parties faster than they can switch campaign shirt colors. But stalwarts would eventually feel the hit both politically and personally.
In the 2019 elections, the LP-led and -associated Otso Diretso suffered a painful loss in the senatorial race.
In 2022, Robredo ran for president as an independent even as she was the party’s chairperson still. The former vice president, vilified by Duterte and his followers for over six years, then ran a grassroots “pink wave” that pulled her numbers up considerably — although it was far from enough to stop the overwhelming win of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The Liberal Party, over 14 years after its modern resurgence in Philippine politics, finds itself attempting a comeback via the House of Representatives in a midterm election that’ll also be a referendum on the second Marcos administration.
Its proud history, including its painful recent past, was all on display when the LP convened in late September.
De Lima, who herself admitted she wasn’t sure if she wanted to rejoin politics, told a crowd of LP members then: “Our fight is not in the past. Our fight is here in the now. The past is where we draw lessons and strengths, but today is where the battle is fought and where the future is determined.” – Rappler.com
